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Leader (1850-1860), 24th August 1850, Edition Country of 1, Page 13

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      Jack Ketch As A Moral Instructor. The Ga...

      Looking at these indications of character and motive , and considering- what would be the influences to affect such a mind—and it is the inchoate Bennisons who are to be influenced by the example of this perfected criminal—it does not appear that the gallows is the appropriate instrument of determent , nor that Methodism or saintism is an efficient guide to virtue . Methodism acts as a sort of auxiliary pander ; the fear of punishment causes him to abstain from doing what he could to

      reveal his crime . Yet he had some promptings of good feeling which a better training might have developed . With a criminal of his class , it is evident that the best example would be one of penitential expiation and reform ; not the transient and terrible agony of hanging , but such a correcting discipline as that suggested by Captain Maconochie . It is clear that he was open to influences appealing to his better instincts and feelings ; but that neither the prayer meetings nor the gallows presented the channel for making that appeal .

      Aug. 24, 1850.] ©Ft* %T*Tttt* 517 ¦ ————...

      Aug . 24 , 1850 . ] © ft * % t * tttt * 517 ¦ ———— ' —— ¦

      The Railway Drivers' Strike. After Looki...

      THE RAILWAY DRIVERS' STRIKE . After looking at all the facts connected with the strike of the enginemen and firemen lately in the employment of the Eastern Counties Railway , we cannot help coming to the conclusion that the Company , as represented by its officials , is chiefly to blame . The first aggressor appears to have been Mr . Gooch ; who , after ten years' service in the employment of the South Western Railway , entered that of the Eastern Railway Company , about a month ago , as Superintendent of Locomotives .

      One of his first acts was a vigorous attempt to put the establishment on a better footing ; but , in doing this , he seems to have made it his study to enforce certain reductions of wages , which immediately caused complaints from the men . They carried their complaint to the directors , stating their determination not to submit to his unjust and tyrannical proceedings , " and demanding his dismissal . This request not having

      been complied with , 178 of them gave immediate notice of their intention to leave the Company ' s service at the end of a week . The directors refused to yield ; and , accordingly , the men departed . Their places have been partially supplied by new men , who are described by Mr . Gooch as " good and efficient drivers ; " many of them , however , if we judge from the accidents which have already happened , are utterly unfit to be entrusted with the charge of life and property .

      The present state of the question , then , is , that the regular traffic of 300 miles of railway has been thrown into complete confusion by Mr . Gooch ' s hasty attempts at reform and his eagerness to effect great savings in wages . It is true that he denies his ever having had any intention to reduce wages ; but the men reiterate their statements on that head with the most circumstantial precision . In this position of affairs the public will naturally begin to enquire how far the Eastern Railway Company is fulfilling those conditions on which its

      virtual monopoly of carrying goods and passengers was granted . In almost every instance a railway company , from the magnitude of its capital , the wide range and exclusive character of its operations , as well as the peculiar privileges secured to it by Parliament , is beyond the influence of competition . Its government is of a mixed administrative character , its objects being to make all the profit it can , consistently with the securing of certain services to the public who are not shareholders . First among these services is the safe conduct of

      its passenger traffic . Having invested so much power in the hands of a railway company , the public has right to demand that human life shall not be put in jeopardy by measures contrived for no other purpose than to swell the company ' s dividends . Granting that a Superintendent is able to show the possibility of saving a few hundred pounds a year by reducing the wages of certain workmen holding responsible situations on the line , it is neither just nor wise to attempt any such saving , on the plea that men can easily be found to work at the reduced rate : unless the men feel that

      they are justly , if not liberally , paid , they will not be animated by a spirit conducive to the comfort and safety of the public : such savings , therefore , risk the lives of the passengers . This is bad administration ; but bad administration of the great highways will not long be tolerated by the public : unless directors administer in the sense of the public interest , Parliament will be forced to vote " no confidence" in them , and they will have to abdicate .

      THE WORKERS AND THE LANDLORDS . In the speech , which Lord Stanley made on the Greek question , he spoke of " a cannie Scot , " a Mr . Finlay , who had bought a piece of land at Athens for £ 20 ; and , as it happened that King Otho ' s palace was built in the immediate vicinity , this small plot was required for a palace-garden . Under these circumstances , Mr . Finlay , knowing that he had a monopoly of the article wanted , demanded £ 1600 for the piece of ground which he had bought for less than £ 20 , although he had added no value to it . Such a demand Lord Stanley deemed a case of exorbitant extortion . But will he apply the same rule to his own case ? In a recent publication , Mr . Somerville , better known as * ' One who has whistled at the Plough , " gives the particulars of a case in which Lord Stanley plays the part of the " cannie Scot ' at Liverpool quite as cleverly as Mr . Finlay appears to have done at Athens . In the case of Finlay , Lord Stanley would have allowed him compensation ; but the standard on which he would grant it would be merely the price originally paid for , or the value added to , the land by the owner . Let us see how Mr . Somerville applies this very simple rule to Lord Stanley ' s own affairs . " This principle applied to the purchase of the Bootle Sands by the dock trustees of Liverpool , three years ago , would have saved £ 70 , 000 to that corporation , liord Stanley was a party to the exaction of that sum . It is to be expended in a few years , ultimately to form a ground rent , growing in amount as Liverpool grows—millions of pounds sterling to accrue to each succeeding generation of Stanleys for ever . And for what ? For a waste to which neither Lord Stanley nor any of his family added a penny of value at any time . And further , a waste which is surrounded by the Stanley estate of valuable land , which is valuable only because of the growth , of Liverpool , the intense industry and productive capital of Lancashire . " What a paltry case of extortion is that of Finlay compared with the Derby transaction , which is merely a type of what has been going rapidly forward in the neighbourhood of every large town in the kingdom , especially during the last sixty or eighty years .

      Social Reform. Epistolje Obscurorttm: Vi...

      SOCIAL REFORM . epistolje obscurorttm : virorum . No . IV . —Religion : its Unity . To A A . August 22 , 1850 . Fellow Traveller , —I continue my search , and gladly pass from the discords which human weakness has conjoined with the idea of religion to the question of its unity and of the mode in which its essential spirit may be made a rule of harmony , Among the many phases of the religious agitation which just now moves society in so many parts of the world , I notice three of special importance . In spite of all the concussions which opinion has received in the last and the present century , I notice that the perennial faith in religion which appears to have endured among mankind from the earliest history of our race , is not only unshaken , but is actually gaining strength with the immense development of free opinion in our day . In proportion to the growth of knowledge ana the emancipation of opinion , this perennial adhesion to a belief in religion receives stronger sanction . Secondly , I observe that the faith in dogmatic belief—that is to say , belief , not in the essential and universal spirit of Religion , but in the particular doctrines taught by particular priesthoods , —is losing its strength , as the education of mankind extends the insight into those incredibilities which are bound up with dogmatic belief . In one sense , therefore , there is a disposition throughout the whole of society—I am not now speaking of peculiar sceptical classes , but of the whole mass of society—to repel the influence of religion along with those incredibilities which growing intelligence repels , but which the vulgar idea unites with religion . Thirdly , I notice among the several sects into which society may be divided on the subject of religious belief , a tendency to agree on the broadest essentials , and to draw together in that common recognition . The second of these averments appears to be incompatible with the two others ; the inconsistency , however , lies , not in my explanation , but in the inconsistent state of opinion . I might bring many signs of the general approximation which I have mentioned , but I will not encumber this letter with too much in the nature of testimony . To exhaust the subject on which we have entered would need volumes . I will .

      however , point to a few leading facts . You notice that on the Continent , —in Germany , for example , where the subject of Religion lias been very much discussed of late , the newest spirit is one which seeks to unite the philosophism of that country with the old spirit of Christianity . In France , again , the latest revolution abstained from any anti-religious demonstration , not only because the great mass of society would have been alienated by

      ¦ ^¦ ¦¦¦¦ * " ^^^ such a demonstration , but manifestly because the leading minds of France , although perfectly free from dogmatic oppression , adhere to some form of religious belief . In this country the signs of the approximation are observable on every side . Could I do so with safety to others I might cite many instances of a new spirit which is extending within , the Church of England , generalizing its dogmas , and throwing the force of zeal which they have monopolized heretofore into the broadest essentials , —the faith in God and in the moral portion of the

      doctrine taught by Jesus . These signs are known by me to exist , not in any particular private circle , but in a great variety of directions ; not only in disengaged members of the Church , like Foxton and others , who have openly dissented , but in many who are now working members of that Church , and compelled by circumstances to retain , wholly unimpaired , the outward aspect of orthodoxy . I am told that among the younger class of Dissenting ministers , with whom I am not so well acquainted , a spirit precisely similar is gaining ground ; insomuch that these younger men will act rather as the ministers of the universal faith than as the ministers of sect .

      A still more remarkable change is taking place before our eyes among that scattered class who may be said to represent the Freethinkers of the last two or three generations . Their demeanour is characterized generally by two traits new and most important in their consequences . In place of speaking in that veiled language , which was usual among all but the vulgar and audacious , they now speak in direct and open terms . Heterodoxy , to use its antiquated name , no longer resorts to the bye-way of wit for its freest issues , but can speak in the simple language of common life . It does so

      without fear and with impunity . The other trait is , that in place of the blank scepticism which was prevalent among the intellectual classes , there is now a disposition to reunite under the common influence of the universal religion . For signs of these several approximations I might point you to the admirable books of Francis Newman on the Soul and the Phases of Faith j of Foxton , on the tendency of society towards a new kind of Popular Christianity j of Leigh Hunt , my most beloved father and friend , who makes an explicit declaration of faith at the same time that he

      points to that " great revelation of the universe of which Humboldt is the great prophet in our day ; to the generous book of the Episcopalian Bushnell , on God in Christ j could I proclaim their authorship , I might point to the admirable anonymous letters on the subject of Religion in the Open Council of my own paper . In short , the disposition to appeal from dogma to the universal conscience and faith of mankind is to be found in every class of society , and every class of public discussion .

      These phenomena , taken together , have filled me with a hope that the time has come when our fellow-men , in place of wasting their aspirations and their energies in quarrelling upon sectarian points , may find a common term of Religion which shall unite all sects as provinces in one vast world , and enable those who have hitherto contended , to join their forces under the all-prevailing influence for the advancement of their species . Such a social revolution would emancipate Religion from the

      self-contest which at present neutralizes and wastes the greatest influence that can prevail over large bodies of men , and would throw the whole force of that motive power in the one great direction . I think that if men who have the faculties and attainments for such an investigation were to undertake it with the necessary conditions , it would not be long before we should attain to an unity of Religion , overriding the partial divisions of sect . The necessary conditions to such an investigation would be to observe , reflect , and note ; and religiously to

      abstain from presuming anything beyond the facts to be noted and modestly inferred . If men so qualified would let their facts and inductions alone be the elements of their conclusions , and not import into those conclusions something beyond , unknown , probably unexisting , and only assumed , the conclusions would then be as pure as human intelligence could attain . Investigations carried on in this spirit of modesty , with whatsoever courage and diligence , would educe from facts and reflection all that we can know of the true and universal

      Religion . There are materials for such an investigation . For example , there is the one vast undeniable fact that , speaking generally , the religious impulse is a fixed trait of human nature , existing so universally both as to space and time , and under circumstances

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 24, 1850, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24081850/page/13/