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Leader (1850-1860), 29th March 1851, Edition Country of 2, Page 13, PETITION SIGNATURES. Smithfield Market i...

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      Essex Anarchy And Yorkshire Organization...

      monopoly of land in England is so close that such an arrangement can hardly ever be effected . There are other signs besides the fearful extension of pauperism . Two criminals have been hanged this week at Chelmsford . One was a participator in those Essex poisonings which have disclosed the thoroughly diseased state of mind in wide classes of the poor—those classes that are confronted with the temptations and with the difficulties of civilization , not strengthened by its education or its facilities ; but neither of the two criminals exemplified the worst depravities

      increasing amongst our crowded and squalid populations , of country or town . The hideous story which we told last week , of the girl who buried her child alive , stamped upon the earth which was stifling its cries , and then sat down upon the SpOt—even that does not exemplify the depravity which ignorance , squalor , moral desolation , and artificial excitements are extending among the hordes exiled from the fields to crowd the slums and " bad neighbourhoods" of our towns . Every now and then the police reports open a glimpse into this hellish chasm beneath our feet—social ravines into which genteel religion seldom penetrates ;

      abandoned abodes where the most sacred distinctions of blood and age are forgotten . It is the joint working of our repellent Poor Law , our settlement , our prejudice against organization of labour , and trust in the " higgling of the market /* that is draining the abandoned fields to crowd our towns , where labour is idle , life is diseased , and existence itself becomes identified with depravity . " Let alone " has had its day , and here are the fruits : no wonder that intelligent men , like those at Sheffield , at Bradford and the Thanet Union , at Galway and Cork , are beginning to think that it is time to try other courses .

      March 29, 1851.] ©!) * &£&&*** 297

      March 29 , 1851 . ] ©!) * & £ &&*** 297

      A. Cotjntkt "Without A Bishop. The Bisho...

      A . COTJNTKT "WITHOUT A BISHOP . The Bishop of Oxford , in great alarm at the increasing commotion , in the Church , exhorts all patties—clergy and people—to mutual forbearance . He tries to frighten Lord Ashley and his evangelical friends , by assuring them that , if they succeed in making the Tractarians leave the Church , " the Church will not long survive their expulsion , and then must come—first the war of all Beets , and then the end of all religion . " But is the of

      Bishop quite sure that this witt ^ e the result a sep « r « - tion of Churoh and . . Stato- ? if lie * look around him he might find countries without anything which , he Would call a church , and yet where , what jhe would call religion , seems much more active than it is in England . Take , for example , the following . picture of Scotland , as drawn by Henry Brougham , in 1822 . He had been employed to defend a man named Williams for a libel on the clergy of Durham , and in the course of bis speech he made this allusion to the destitute condition of Scotland : —

      " 8 trange as it may seem , and to many who hear me incredible , from one end of tile kingdom to the other , a traveller will see no such thing as a bishop—not such a thing : is to bo found from the Tweed to John-o-Uro & t ' a—not u mitre , no , nor ho much as a minor canon , or even a rural dean—and in all the land not a single curate—so entirely rude and barbarous are they in Scotland—in such utter darkness do they sit . that tht-y support no Cathedrals , maintain no pluralists , flutter ilo non-residence ; nay , the . poor benighted creatures are ignorant even of tithes ! Not a sheaf , or a lamb , or a pig , or the value of a plough-penny , do the helpless mortals render from year ' s end to year ' s end ! Piteous as their lot is , what renders it infinitely moie touching is to wiCnets the return of good for evil in the demeanour of this wretched race . Under all this cruel neglect of their spiritual concerng , they are actually the most loyal , contented , moral , and religious people anywhere , perhaps , to be found in the world . "

      Bbliqiou8 Liukitty Sometimes L'Eksonai* ...

      BBLIQIOU 8 LIUKItTY SOMETIMES l'EKSONAI * RESTRAINT . The Globe " has reason to believe that Misa Talbot will be placed under the care of a Roman Catholic peeress of high rank . In deference to the wish expressed by the Lord Chancellor , wo forbear mentioning the name . " Miss Talbot seems to have been residing where she felt inclined to reside ; but Protestant strangers get an idea into their heads that her liberty is infringed , and so she must go and reside where her choice had not inclined .

      Taxes On Knowledge. Sinou The Great Meet...

      TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE . Sinou the great meeting at St . Martin ' a-hall the movement has made steady progress . The request which wo published as tho last act of the Newspaper Stamp Abolition Committee was complied with on Saturday , March the 8 th , when a number of Members of Parliament , headed by Mr . Hume , had nn interview with Lord John ltussell , and urged him to repeal « ll the Taxes on Knowledge , and particularly the Penny 8 tamp . At tho end of the interview , Mr . Hume left with Lord John upwards of forty unstamped publications containing illegal mutter . We have already recorded the deputation of newspaper proprietors on the subject of the advertisement duty ; by no means , however , the most preening of the Knowledge Taxes . The Irish deputation , woro at

      once more generous and more politic when they stated that the abolition of the paper duty would not be enough to satisfy them . In another part of our paper we publish the address of the Association for Promoting the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge . Our readers , whether in town or country , should now follow the advice to get up petitions ; those friends of the cause who are willing to do bo , or merely to allow petitions to lie in their shops , would do well to write to Essex-street , whence they may be supplied with written petitions . Last year the petitions for total repeal were nearly one thousand ; if they do not reach one hundred thousand this year it will be a proof that the people are not doing their share of the work required in their own cause .

      Sham Groceries. The Encouragement Given ...

      SHAM GROCERIES . The encouragement given to the sham grocery trade by the Treasury licence regarding coffee is producing its legitimate effect in regard to all articles of general consumption . Of forty-two samples of mustard procured from wholesale and retail dealers in the metropolis , the Lancet states that not one was found pure ; all were more or less adulterated , and in every case the adulteration was of the same kind , wheaten flour coloured with turmeric . We see that the merchants , planters , and inhabitants of Ceylon have petitioned Parliament for relief

      on account of the injury done to the coffee trade by the open encouragement given to the sale of chicory , under the name of coffee . They justly complain that while the genuine article is made to pay a duty of about 100 per cent ., the home-grown substitute is subjected to no duty at all . They ask for a reduction of the present duty on coffee , and for some measure to prevent the sale of chicory as coffee . By the present system , as they remark , Government is " giving a premium to fraud , punishing the fair trader , and treating the colonist worse than the inhabitant of the mother country . "

      Petition Signatures. Smithfield Market I...

      PETITION SIGNATURES . Smithfield Market is in agitation , to be removed or not to be removed ; the City is torn with conflicting opinions on the subject ; counter-petitions and counterdeputations are arrayed against each other ; and at the Court of Aldermen , On Tuesday , Alderman Sidney was obliged to protect the petition in favour of the Corporation scheme . The signatures , he says , amount to 70 , 000 and will soon amount to 100 , 000—all the signers

      residents , and not some of them pickpockets , as Alderman Wilson had insinuated * Alderman Wilson calls for inquiry into the signature * . . The Corporation , it seems , though it has comparatively but a , trifle of numbers to deal with , is in the pb' sition of the Chartists in 1848 ; a few doubtful signatures are to vitiate the whole " monster petition . " Perhaps civic gentlemen can now sympathize with the difficulties of not only testing , but authenticating every signature .

      Opinion At Aveston. The Soiree Of The Me...

      OPINION AT AVESTON . The soiree of the Mechanics' Institution at Westonsuper-Mare , is truly the sign of a great progress going on quietly throughout society . It was the fifth anniversary ; among the upholders of the institution , were the High Sheriff of the county , Mr . Thomas Tufton Knyfton , an old and tried friend of liberty in the full sense of the word—he presided ; there were also two Dissenting clergymen , and the Vicar of the large parish of Bamwell .

      The Vicar , Mr . W . H . Turner , set a fine example of generous piety , when he called for unsectarian education as the means of enabling youth to pass through a period of life most dangerous to the ignorant , and of enabling all to appreciate the religious instruction which falls dead upon the uneducated . Mr . Mears , of Taunton , painted the baneful effects of excessive competition on the working classes , and pointed their attention to cooperation . A company not only intelligent but " respectable , " listened to these truths , and with favour !

      Why Does Tub Chukcic Oitohu Education.—W...

      Why does tub Chukcic oitohu Education . —We remember being told in our youthful days , that dogfanciers succeeded in producing the race of tiny lupdogs by administering gin to them while puppies , and thus preventing their further growth . We shall not need to insist upon the correctness of our information . True «» r false it will to serve to illustrate our present subject . The main end of the system of education worked by the clergy seems to be , to hinder the free development of the youthful mind , and to produce a race of intellectual dwarfs . With the miserable pittance of instruction , the coarsest rudiments of knowledge imparted in their

      schools they mingle slavish maxims usque ad nauseam . Habits of inquiry constitute just the one thing which they labour to prevent—independence ) of mind tho cardinal sin which the youngster * are taught to shun . To do what they are bid , to think as they are taught , to believe whut they arc told by clerical authority , to go to churoh without knowing why , to submit to government as it is without asking wherefore , to be reading and writing machines to subserve the purposes of the powerful and the rich—mere living copies of a primer and a prayerbook—this is what our rising generution arc to gain by the generous aid of the Establishment . —Miall ' s Nonconformist ' s Sketch-Book .

      Kitttatnxt.

      Kitttatnxt .

      Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

      Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them — Edinburgh Review .

      In The Proof Sheets Of A: Recent Article...

      In the proof sheets of a recent article for the Quarterly Review the word progress was invariably spelled proggress , and printed in italics . Upon hearing this a wit maliciously remarked , " The printer thought it was some foreign word—never having printed it before . " Indeed it is a word to startle the pages of the Quarterly ; a word of evil omen , which must , feel in those pages like a working man in ruffles , or a parvenu in May Fair I

      Seriously , the word is a new word , for it expresses a new idea . Progress in our modern sense is the lever of revolutions . Formerly the golden age was always in the past ; now we look forward to it , and we are to reach it through progress . But no later than the seventeenth century , when Perkault first in levity raised the question of the superiority of the moderns over the ancients , he was ridiculed from one end of learned Europe to the other . Among the ancients themselves , as

      Auguste Comte somewhere remarks , the greatest thinkers were unable to emancipate themselves from the prejudice of their having degenerated , because they had not political experience of a sufficiently extensive nature ; and , indeed , only since the first French Revolution has the idea of Progress become generally accepted , although isolated thinkers had distinctly enough enunciated it—as Bacon , in his famous saying , " Antiquity is the youth of the wnrlri : " and Pascal ., in that crand formula : world ; " and Pascalin that grand formula :

      , " The whole succession of mankind , during the long course of centuries , must be considered as that of one man for ever existing and for ever learning something new . " And at last Progress has crept new into the pages of the Quarterly ! Where , by the way , we have sometimes seen the modern barbarismrapidly gaining fresh territory in our language"to progress ' : a thing "progresses" there with terrible velocity . Apropos of Progress and its Foes , are we never to hear an end to this furious twaddle about the

      Papal Aggression ? The number of screams in pamphlets and articles , all at the same pitch , and all so senseless , " Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man , " makes us regard the Aggression as a pest from the noise it lias excited . Calm and sensible men raise their voices in reply , but vain the hope to smooth those turbulent bawlers ! There is no quos ego , but Time . Among the tolerant and thoughtful protests against this clamour , we may single out Geoiige Dawson ' s two Lectures delivered at the

      Town-hall of Birmingham—the town which has the glory of having completely foiled the Anti-Papal agitators , and refused to petition the Queen . Mr . Dawson takes a firm but temperate view of the question ; one passage we emphatically endorse : — " For the Pope ' s denial of my Christianity I care not . I am used to such denials . His license to enter the kingdom of heaven I no more value than did Kings of old the liberty accorded to them by an eastern potentate , who , when he had dined , caused his herald to proclaim his gracious permission to his royal brethren to begin to feed . It may do English bishops and clergy good to be occasionally unchristiitnized . Apt at unchurching others , their indignant cries or whimpering whine when subjected to the process , do but bring upon them ridicule and contempt . " Nothing ds more piquant in the successes of research than to stumble upon some modem marvel in some forgotten author ; or to dincover that the miracle of to-day wuh known a century a # o . Of all the astounding novelties Holiciting our attention , that of painless operation in surgical cnnv . » by the agency of incHincrism or chloroform , is undoubtedly one of tho most important . It is no novelty . Pai'in , the first who pointed out the use to which steam might be applied hh « motive power , left a manuscript entitled Trait / : ties operations sans douleur , wherein he examines the different agencies by which sensibility cun be suspended during opera-

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), March 29, 1851, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29031851/page/13/