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Nrws op thb Week— Page Destruction of Life and Property by Doctrine 300 Notes and Extracts > 30 o Parliament 290 Iceberg 295 A Vision of 1851 301 Thb Arts—Progress of Legislation 292 "Waterloo Day ..... 295 Wages and Food 302 The Lyric Drama 306 An Oriental Peter the Great 292 The Factory Bill 296 Our American Rivals 302 Progress op Science—Lord Brousrham and Chevalier Bun- Wreck of a Scotch Steamer 296 Open Council— Museum of Economic Geology .... 306 sen ~ 292 Fires and Loss of Life 296 The Dangers of Diplomacy 302 Portfolio—The President and his Salary 293 Post-office Notice Regarding Sunday Justice Enforceth Universal Suffrage 302 Compensations 307 The Hall of Industry in Hyde-park . 293 Letters 296 Marriage Indissoluble 302 Old Feelings 307 Unfortunate Marriages 293 Public Affairs— Literature— Poets in Parliament oU 7 The Press Law in Prussia 294 The Ministerial Defeat 299 Tennyson ' s New Poem 303 The Glass Hatchet 308 India 294 The Saints and the Cowards 300 New Novel by Dumas 304 To a Razor 309 The American Marauders 294 Secular Education and College for Bigsby ' s Shoe and Canoe 304 Commercial Affairs—• • The People ' s College , Nottingham . 295 the People ..... 300 Books on our Table 305 Markets , Gazettes , &c 310-12
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Ministers are in a mess ; and " plucky" as Lord John may seem , it is manifest that their difficulties are gaining upon them . It is not the one great defeat of the week that is their real danger . That would have been more formidable to men more proud and stiffnecked ; but it is the weekly recurrence of small obstructions and defeats , sometimes open , sometimes concealed by the appearance of spontaneous concession . Not that we make light of the scandal on Monday evening . Lord Stanley , whose ability always shines best under the stimulant of malice , exposed with terrible effect the united triviality and danger of the foreign policy
that drags us into threats of an European war to enforce the scarcely equivocal bill of a wandering Jew against the shuffling Government of Greece . Lord Palmerston and his colleagues stand exposed as trifling , wantonly mischievous , and incompetent . But that was the smallest part of the matter ; an unusual concurrence of speakers broadly proclaim the fact , thai a majority of the Peers , though not over willing to precipitate a ministerial crisis , felt bound to pronounce an opinion in accordance with Lord Stanley ' s exposure ; and felt bound , moreover , to record that opinion by a decisive majority of thirtyseven over the Ministerial muster . And while
Government lends its shoulders to this great castigation , without winning , it is fain also to let Lord Westmeath maul its bill for the Amendment of its Encumbered Estates Act , —to let Lord Ashley dictate the management of its Post-office on Sundays . Even its coups d ' etats are of a mean and vulgar order . It is said , and the patent facts make the assertion too probable , that Ministers have hastened to acquiesce in Lord Ashley ' s address to the Crown , for suppressing
Sunday labour in the Post-office , not in order to promote the observance of the Sabbath , but in order that the public may feel the inconvenience and may be disgusted . Routed by Lord Stanley , hamstrung by Lord Westmeath , evading straight-forward contest with Lord Ashley , they seek a success upon a small matter by striking their opponent in the back ; and they are to profit , next week , by the hard swearing of their political witnesses , the Radicals !
They may claim the right of fashion among existing governments , in accepting a low and mean position ; for , indeed , that fashion appears to be general , and not a week passes without some signal specimen of it . See the President of the Great Republic near us haggling with a reluctant Coalition for additional salary to pay his debts withal j and in anticipation of disappointment , currying favour with the People by an opportune largess . See the King of Prussia recovering from the panic of revolution , to carry on a contest with newsmen and newspaper readers in his attempt to crush the press . The poor man is not strong [ Town Edition . ]
enough to bear being written about ! Indeed there is scarcely a Government in Europe that undergoes the process with advantage . We often think that our Whig rulers must envy the privilege of putting down newspapers enjoyed by their Republican and Absolutist compeers abroad ; but they have not yet attempted the same indulgence in London . The most striking material improvement under active discussion this week—the abolition of the
Irish Lord Lieutenancy — illustrates the too-oft forgotten necessity of well maturing measures , especially measures of Reform , and of setting forth a strong case in their support . There can be no question that the abolition of the mock royalty will be a decided improvement ; but Ministers have not taken the pains to collect and marshal the telling facts that would enforce that expediency . They have not even arranged their measure so as to ensure its own successful working . It is not certain that they themselves know precisely what they
intended to do ; for they are probably concocting the measure , as they did their Australian Colonies Bill , while it is under the operation of passing through Parliament . They have thus left it open to Sir Robert Peel to utter those doubts which impress the public with so strong a sense of his earnest candour , and so damaging a sense of the Ministerial crudity . He does not threaten to stop the measure ; but he has already succeeded in letting the public know that it is by no means what it ought to be .
Another improvement of rather remoter application is chalked out for future efforts , but fails at present . Mr . Bright ' s motion for a Royal Commission to go to India , and enquire what hinders the natives from growing as much cotton as Lancashire can spin , was a complete failure . The case was an excellent one ; but , while the mover was not felicitous in placing it before the House , there was also a sturdy inconsistency in the demand by
so strong an advocate of the Laissez-faire theory , that Government should do what the men of Manchester can so easily do themselves . What is there to prevent that wealthy order from appointing a Lancashire Commission , much more able and honest than any which the Queen can choose , to proceed to India and collect testimony as to the rule of the East India Company , the Land-Tax , and other flagrant grievances ? If they are in earnest they ought to do that at once ?
The question of National Education was revived for a brief interval , in the House of Commons , by-Lord Melgund , whose bill to reform the Scotch . Parish School system provoked a slight and very superficial discussion on Wednesday ; and it was almost read a second time . The opposition to the measure , on the part of Scotch members , was very feeble , considering that neither the Church of Scotland nor the '• Free Kirk " are very favourable to a national system . Lord Brougham's escapade against the Chevalier
Bunsen , whom he caused to be turned out of the Peeresses' gallery , has provoked a good deal of gossip and amusement : but it was a melancholy exhibition—we will not say of wanton ruffianism , because charitable excuses may be sought in reflecting on Lord Brougham ' s years , and his over-excited
career . The public has had happier and more legitimate objects of seasonable gossip . There was Waterloo Day , somewhat relieved of its commonplace by a great military show at Portsmouth , with the inauguration of the statues of Wellington and Nelson . The drawing-room fuvoured the Queen ' s first appearance since her last maternal retirement : an endless string of carriages threading all the streets near St . James ' Palace , attested to the gaping loungers
the number and brilliancy of the attendance . Hampton Races , blessed by splendid weather , drew forth a less critical and sporting concourse than the great races of Epsom and Ascot , but certainly not a less happy one . Tangible signs of the exposition of 1851 already attract notice in the Parkthe marking of trees implicated in the building . But the great object of notice has been the Nepaulese General , Prime Minister , Regent , and Ambassador ; for Jung Bahadur seems to be all
these gentlemen rolled into his single handsome person . A contemporary describes him as " Indian Peter the Great , " come over to learn our institutions , that he may carry back to India European ideas and commence the regeneration of Hindustan in his frontier state . Is this a romantic view of his intentions ? If he has any such object , certainly he does not take a method at all so promising as that of the royal shipwright . The man who can only speak through an interpreter , who
cannot eat with the Romans when he visits Rome , who cannot break down the portable hedge of prejudice and ceremonial which he carries about with him , is not likely to learn much more of our institutions than is to be obtained from riding in the streets , lounging at the theatres , and sitting at untasted banquets . Assuredly India would not be regenerated , even though he were to carry over , in lieu of his native institutions , our excellent pavements , public dinners , and ballet dancers .
There is , indeed , enough to reform in India , as we are reminded by Mr . Bright ' s review of the terrible rent system , almost as murderous in its effects , nay , more so than those crimes of Suttee and Thuggee , to which , as we see by the news of the week , the Indians adhere so obstinately . But why apeak of crime in India ? Why moralize on the superficial insight of Jung Bahadur
into English institutions P Have we not also our crimes ? Do we understand our own institutions ? Do we learn the facts about them ? Ask if there is anything attended by more general misery , even by ruin and death , than the imperfect arrangements which control the relations of conjugal life . Look at the examples this week , the cases of divorce before Parliament and the Ecclesiastical 4
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No . 13 . SATURDAY , JUNE 22 , 1850 . Price 6 d .
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" The one Idea which History exhibits as erermore developing itself into greater distinctness is the Ideft of Humanity—the noble endearour to throw down all the barriers erected between men by prejudice and one-sided views ; and by setting aside the distinctions of Religion , Country , and Colour , to treat the whole Human race as one brotherhood , having one great object—the free development of our spiritual nature . "—Humboldt ' s Cosmos .
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Leader (1850-1860), June 22, 1850, page unpag., in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1843/page/1/
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