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    896 &t)C VL taitt* . [Saturday,

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    AN ANTIDOTE FOR SPIES. The Society of th...

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    A FLATTERING LIKENESS. M. A. de la Guero...

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    A SUJjVKHKIVK TACT. TiiKitE is a per?on ...

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    SOCIAL K E F O R M. " NOTES OK A SOCIAL ...

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    In a report made to the Secretary-ot-War...

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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 8uiwiuhic A«J1> Tbht Of 1'Kohj'kltlt...

    of showing that pauperism has decreased eight or nine per cent ., he would only require to ask Messrs . Tennant , of Glasgow , or Mr . Musprat , of Liverpool , and a few other large manufacturers of the commodity , what demand there is for oil of vitriol compared with former years . The answer would show , among other things , what demand there has been for soap ; for , as Liebig elsewhere remarks , " The quantity of soap consumed by a nation would form no inaccurate measure whereby to measure its wealth and civilization ; " we must warn the Chancellor of the Exchequer , however , not to rely too much upon the soap te 6 t as a criterion of national prosperity . On consulting the revenue returns we find that the average consumption per head—thanks to our absurd and oppressive Excise regulations—has not increased a single ounce during the last ten years .

    896 &T)C Vl Taitt* . [Saturday,

    896 & t ) C VL taitt * . [ Saturday ,

    An Antidote For Spies. The Society Of Th...

    AN ANTIDOTE FOR SPIES . The Society of the Friends of Italy have issued No . 1 of a Monthly Record , intended , as its name implies , to record , not only the progress of the society , but the progress of the Italian question . Additional evidence of the immense usefulness of the society is furnished by the address of the Sardinian workmen , published elsewhere , from the Times . No Englishman who values liberty and

    justice , who sees even the material importance of Italian Independence should stand aloof from this society . At the present time it is of especial moment that the people should aid in foreign movements , and sustain foreign refugees , since there is good reason to believe that there are Austrian spies in British pay , and a duplex Minister in the Foreign-office . The best way to oppose him and them is to support the frank and open action of societies like this of the Friends of Italy .

    A Flattering Likeness. M. A. De La Guero...

    A FLATTERING LIKENESS . M . A . de la Gueronniere , the rose-water optimist , ditto of his friend Lamartine , and a thorough adept in Lamartinism , has lately indulged his pen and his readers with a fancy portrait of that great man , Louis Napoleon Bonaparte . His way of painting a flattering likeness does not require the subject to give any sittings to the artist . He forms a beau ideal in his own warm imagination of a noble , profound , mysterious , self sacrificing Prince-President : he adorns it with the finest touches ,

    and lends it the grandest features . Having finished his portrait , he calls it — Louis Napoleon Bonaparte . One unfailing method of establishing the good qualities of IW . Bonaparte is , after arraying a catalogue of graces and virtues in all the colours of a prismatic diction , to say—and , what is singular , M . Bonaparte is so reserved that his nearest intimates do not recognize these fine qualities ! A French wit wrote to compliment the artist on his portrait , in which he could find but one fault . 11 ne lui manque que le nez !

    A Sujjvkhkivk Tact. Tiikite Is A Per?On ...

    A SUJjVKHKIVK TACT . TiiKitE is a per ? on living in one of the streets of Kensington , who evidently possesses the loftiest genius in house decoration , and no mean capacity for advertising himself . Contagious example of Alexis Soyer ! Upon a blue and pink check ground , which covers the whole front of the house , the Kensington marine-store dealer has actually had 1 : is name and occupation painted with the letter * turned upside dotrn ! The force of Robins could no further go !

    Social K E F O R M. " Notes Ok A Social ...

    SOCIAL K E F O R M . " NOTES OK A SOCIAL ( KCONOMIST . " THE COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS OF ENGLAND . " QUI LAI 1 OKAT OltAT . " I . Tub evident improvement which has recently taken place in the moral , physical , and social condition of the Operatives in the populous and wealthy counties of York and Lancaster , is a practical and indisputable proof of the increasing intelligence , and , consequently , increasing political power of the unprivileged and disfranchised classes in . England . The present qualification for the privilege of voting for national representatives (?) being the morally degrading test of money-worth , not moral or social worth . This increased political power has been already exercised in the most useful manner for the purpose of carrying out two very important measures of Social and Economical Reform—The total repeal of the corn-laws and the diminution in the hours of factory labour . The enormous advantages obtained for England by the repeal of the bread tax—the net product of war and monopoly—are patent to the world , which also shares in them to a certain extent ; and the repeal of this tax is in some sort an acknowledgment of the right of eveiy citizen , able and willing to work , to an unstinted share , at the minimum price , of that food called " the staff of life , " which is raised from the common earth by the united skill and industry of mankind . The comparative facilities thua acquired Cor the free exchange of the products of labour—a

    principle of capital importance and of universal application—have given a healthy impetus to our foreign trade and home manufacture , and introduced a degree of comfort hitherto unknown into the homes and families of our manufacturing

    population . The diminution in the hours of factory labour has been most beneficial . It has not only increased the number of hands necessarily employed ( at a slight reduction of wages , perhaps ) , but has also given a powerful impulse to improvement in the application of machinery ; the control of mental organization over inert matter . The moral and physical health of the operative has perceptibly improved—a great national economy—and the " schooling " of the children during certain hours

    of the day ( which is enforced by law ) , has been found a profitable speculation to the employer and to the employed . By this humane and concerted limitation of work , the feeble and defenceless are now protected from the tyranny of the strong or unprincipled ; but until pregnant women , and those who have children , be removed from the factory to their natural domestic sphere of activity , no effectual remedy can be applied by the Legislature to the social gangrene of juvenile depravity and corruption , originating in the neglect or ignorance of parents and Guardians .

    The first check to our present commercial prosperity must again lead to a renewal of the clamour for diminished hours of toil , and the time will soon come when it shall be universally acknowledged that eight hours of constant and well directed labour are amply sufficient for every purpose of useful production , that some kind of agricultural or horticultural employment during the twentyfour hours is indispensable to the health of the operative , and that every practical health of towns bill must ultimately take for its motto the proverbial " in urbe "—pure air and water , space , light , warmth , dryness , and exercise being conditions necessary to health .

    The rapid evolution of mental power , the increase of capital , and the improvements gradually introduced into the present imperfect system of cultivation , into the machinery applied to agriculture as well as to manufactures , must all tend to diminish the existing amount of pauperism , and to promote the happiness of all . But if the manufacturing dis - tricts ( except the mining population , now working twelve or fourteen hours a day for an average wagey of from two to two shillings and sixpence ) be in such a thriving condition , the reverse of the picture may be seen in the purely agricultural counties . Land has been a monopoly of the privileged classes , perpetuated by the law of primogeniture ( the only one fool in the family principle ) , by the law of

    entail , and by the uncertainty and expense attendant upon conveyance and title to real property . If land were as easily purchased as cotton , or as Three per Cents ., not only would it be more valuable as a marketable commodity , but it would also become indefinitely more productive and profitable . The land , in fact , has been starved , and frequently converted into mere pastures or shooting grounds , and thus partially depopulated—to which the atrocious law of parish settlement has materially contributed . Mr . Kingsley accuses the land monopolists of being mere " land traders . " Would that they were mere " land traders " ! Does any reasonable being suppose that , if the wool , flax , and cotton trade had been an hereditary monopoly , England could now have boasted of a six hundred million man-machine

    power , as Dr . John Watts , the powerful advocate of secular education , called it , or have employed so large a population , originally drawn from the land , at highly remunerative wages . The full extent of tlie productive power of land i « unknown , or only guessed at ; yet capital still remains unemployed , and , therefore , unproductive , and labourers pauperized or idle : while the soil lies

    comparatively waste and tintilled . Neither must we overlook the fact that hostile competition between traders or employers is not an unmixed evil ; for the employer must then compete for the employed in the labour market , being compelled to do so by the remorseless law , which , as profits diminish , renders increased production necessary . For pauperism—the modern incarnation of evil—will ' overtake the hindmost . "

    Communism , in its most exaggerated form , may be considered as the natural result of pauperism , and a reaction consequent on the neglect and violation of the laws of nature . The Scotch economists have proclaimed , from the stump tops , that pauperism , in the disfranchised victims of monopoly and taxation , was a crjpie ; that pauperism tiad no right

    to indulge in the passions and affections of human nature ; they separated the wife from her husband the child from its mother ; and in their model * workless workhouses the sacred bonds of famil * union were irreverently torn asunder . The gaol instead of the school , became the means of Social Reformation , and a lasting monument of bureau , cratic folly and of failure ; the criminal , in order to escape transportation , now shams conversion a conversion supposed to have been accomplishe d by maudlin religious tracts—a rose-water cure for a deadly moral sickness . As the natural result of such a monstrous system of legislation , a doctrine

    sprung up that women and children were destined by the law of nature , to be the common property of man : and that the wife and companion of his youth and manhood , who is destined to be the comfort and solace of his old age , shall no longer look to him alone for love and protection . But the gentle and vibrating voice of retributive nature shall yet make itself heard amidst this Babel-like confusion of tongues , and vindicate the Divine and eternal truth of her immutable laws . But I am wandering from my theme—the English Associations . Your readers , however , must bear in mind that the history of the various attempts to form

    agricultural communities carries us back to an epoch long antecedent to Christianity . The Jews were divided into three sects , the Pharisees , the Sadducees , and lastly the Essenes , established on the western shores of the Dead Sea . The Essenes were again divided into two sects , the Practici , who lived in community , and the Theorici , in solitude , the original founders of the eremitic and coenobitic mode of life afterwards adopted by the early followers of John and of Jesus . The Essenes devoted themselves entirely to the pursuit of agriculture , and they despised riches , commerce , and navigation . All their goods were held in common , and a system of perfect equality prevailed among them . They had neither wives nor slaves , and performed all menial services for each other . The

    most able and skilful were elected as managers , and their food was prepared by their priests . They recruited their numbers ( upwards of 4000 ) by the adoption of children ; Pliny , therefore , calls them an eternal nation , in which no one is born . It is also related by Philo , the learned Alexandrian Jew , and by Josephus , that the Essenes devoted themselves to the worship of God , not by the sacrifice of animals , but by preserving the spotless purity of their souls ; and they avoided cities because they entertained the opinion that , as physical maladies are generated by putrid exhalations , so , by analogy , the soul-stain of social contagion was ineffaceable .

    Could we but rise to the true nobleness and unity of our work , as Social Reformers , and all zealously cooperate like these poor ignorant enthusiasts , how vast might be the result ! The round earth , and its inhabitants , is our seed-field , the indefinite perfectibility of man our quickening faith , and the principle of universal brotherhood the unity of the human race— a worthy motive for action . Wi \ A . \ AM CoNINGIIAM .

    In A Report Made To The Secretary-Ot-War...

    In a report made to the Secretary-ot-War by Lieutenant-Colonel Jebb , the Inspector-General oi Military Prisons , which has just been printed in a Parliamentary paper , the subject of flogging in the army ia brought forward . It seems that imprisonment in lieu of corporal punishment ha 6 been beneficial in its operation , notwithstanding the contrary opinion of a number of military officers . Colonel Jebb states : — " If the views of the most experienced officers in her Majesty ' s service as to the deterring

    influence of corporal punishment were correct , a great increase of crime in the army might have been anticipated as the necessary consequence of limiting tn ° power of courts murtial , and materially diminishing u mode of puniHhment deemed to bo the most elhcacious for the maintenance of discipline . It i « , JjoWcver , satisfactory to « ee that the result has not been unfavourable ; and though it may partly be attributeU to the encouragement given to good conduct , the better class of men who have entered tho sei vice ,

    and the partial discharge of aome of the w > r » t characters , yet taking all this into account , I think thai experience ban sufficiently hivowii that imprisonment for military offences boa answered the expectations that were formed of it . " In 1816 , tho year previous to the establishment of prisons , the number of convictions by courts martial w « s 9 »/> 4 , and 652 eorponu punishments were inflicted . In I 860 , tho C «» JICI , V '"" were i ) . 5 O ( 5 , and the corporal punishments , 2 . J 8 . xn effective force was about tho same in each year ; w 1846 125 , 262 , and in 1860 , 126 , 119 . Lnst year there wore 496 laslua inflicted by the viuitors tor * e ** ° u * offences , and the number of prisoners udmitteci into military prisons was ' 6665 .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 20, 1851, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20091851/page/12/