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Leader (1850-1860), 14th September 1850, Edition Town of 1, Page 585, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      an examination it was found that seven bladders , containing six gallons and a quart of whisky , were concealed in her bustle . The prisoner was ordered to pay £ 10 , or in default to be imprisoned . Gainsborough has been kept in a state of considerable excitement during the week , by the exhibition of a number of boys being placed in the stocks in the Marketplace , for the crime of Sunday gaming . They were sentenced to be confined three hours each : two of them had their turn on Monday morning , between the hours of seven and one ; others were confined on Wednesday and Thursday . It appeared to be considered as a remarkably good joke by the boys themselves , and crowds were attracted to the spot by the scene .

      The crime of sheep slaughtering has been so prevalent in the neighbourhood of Grantham of late , that the magistrates acting for this part of the county swore in , two special constables on Saturday to look after this class of offenders . As many as thirty sheep have been slaughtered within a short period , without any clue having been obtained likely to lead to the discovery of the depredators . Mr . James Dewar , a teller in the Western Bank , Glasgow , has disappeared , and , on investigation * has been found a defaulter to the extent of £ 2200 . He left

      Glasgow about three weeks ago , on the usual vacation , but , not having returned in due time , suspicion was excited , and it was discovered that he had defrauded the bank to the above-mentioned extent . Intimation was immediately made to his sureties , Upon whom the loss will principally fall , and who are endeavouring to trace the fugitive . In glancing over the calendar which shows the number of trials of prisoners , and the results of those trials , at the last Knutsfofd adjourned sessions , held on the 12 th . of August , for the county of Chester , we find that there had been committed for trial , during a period of six weeks , 92 prisoners . Of these 92 , 22 were acquitted ; against five there were no true bills found by the grand jury ; and in one case the prosecution was withdrawn . The

      result of a portion of the convictions is as follows : — Three were imprisoned for 14 days ; seven for one month ; one for six weeks ; 10 for two months ; and 12 for three months ; total , 33 . Making in all , out of 92 prisoners , 61 against whom the prosecutions failed , or whose offences were of so slig ht a character as to require no greater a punishment than periods of imprisonment ranging from 14 days to three calendar months . Supposing the average costs of prosecutions to be taken at £ 10 each , exclusive of the expenses of apprehension , conveyance to and maintenance while in gaol , the total expenses of the 61 cases will be found to be £ 610 , or rather more than £ 100 per week for one county alone . These facts appear to plead strongly in favour of summary jurisdiction in trifling charges of felony .

      Untitled Article

      The Freeman's Journal says , upon authority , that Dr . Cullen , the Roman Catholic Primate , has resolved on declining the acceptance of any office whatever in connection with the Queen ' s Colleges , or the University proposed to be annexed to them . Previous to the breaking up of the synod at Thurles a unanimous decree was passed for taking immediate steps to found a Catholic university . Every ecclesiastic in Ireland will be called upon to pay an annual tax of 2 per cent , on his income for its support , and a committee has been already named for carrying the project into effect . Dr . Cantvvell , it is said , commences by a subscription of

      £ 11 , 000 . The number of clergymen who this year petitioned atrainst the plan of National Education in Ireland was 1594 considerably more than two-thirds of the whole of the episcopal clergy of that country . The Limerick Chronicle of Saturday contains a tabular report of the state of the crops in thirty of the Irish counties , from which it appears that , although the wheat and potato crops are extensively blighted , the excellent state of the oat , barley , and green crops go far towards warranting us in saying this is not below an average middling harvest .

      At the Killarney sessions on Tuesday week , no less than sixty summonses were issued at the suit of the Earl of Kenmare , against a party of labourers who , on the previous Sunday , cut , and housed in the barn on the lands , the corn crops of Francis Maybury , Esq ., of Lackabaue . The labourers are summoned under an act of William III ., for Sabbath-breaking . The penalty is 5 s . fine , or two hours' imprisonment in the stocks . Such is the present desire for emigration from Ireland that a vessel leaving Cork for Quebec on Tuesday week , had to decline the pressing applications of 100 persons for a passage—so crowded was the vessel already .

      The Roscommon Journal gives a most gratifying account of the practical benefits resulting , especially to the poor peasantry , from the settlement of five or six English families , as farmers , in that district . It is stated that one of those families gives constant employment to one hundred labourers , and that , since the commencement of the harvest , that number has been increased to two or three hundred labouring men , women , and boys . The Court of Quern ' s Bench have sanctioned a change in the dietary of several prisons of Ireland , for persons under short sentence , so as to equalize it to that of the poor-houses . This has been done to prevent so many leaving poor-houses and committing larceny to get into gaol .

      A magistrate of the county and another gentleman of equal station are at present amongst the candidates for the vacant mastership of the workhouse of the union of Kilmallock , in the county of Limerick . A man named Buckley , who had committed a robbery in the cottage of a pour widow in the county of Cork a few days ago , was pursued by the country people , who overtook him , and inflicted such summary punishment that he died almost immediately of i the injuries inflicted .

      Untitled Article

      LOW WAGES CAUSED BY LOW HABITS . "Working men . are often injudiciously treated by their employers in an important respect . Where the men dress -with taste and maintain some appearance of social comfort , employers are apt to infer that they are doing too well , and attempt to reduce their wages . We speak of what occurs in iron foundries and factories in the provinces . This step on the part of employers i 9 most disastrous , not only in its injustice , but in its influence on the men , who come to think that careless habits and the indigence which follows improvidence , are means of keeping up wages .

      How are working men to be raised from improvidence while those who ought to stimulate them , and enable them to do it , suggest to them the policy of keeping themselves poor in order td avoid being made poor ? This treatment blinds working men to the fact how much their elevation depends on their own providence . One master here and there , unwise himself , or whose pride or ignorance is put to the blush by the greater intelligence and taste of his men , will reduce their wages in order to lower their tone , but working men must not fail to notice that these cases are the exception . That throughout mankind the tendency of human

      nature is to help those who help themselves . The poorest man that exists exemplifies the same truth . The very beggar will not give to the beggar , if he has reason to think that what he gives will do no good , but will straightway be wasted . There is no benevolence , high or low , that will many times repeat the act of putting watet into a sieve . This fact , so common in every man's experience , should teach the workman that if he displays habits of thrift others will betray the disposition to help . Moral statistics will assure him that where there is one master who reduces his men because of their social

      aspirations , there are thousands who reduce them because they see no hope of their improvement . This is a cause of low wages operative to a degree that no man will believe who has not reflected on his own conduct , and the unconscious rules by which it is governed . I ask the workshops to weigh it over . The Associations being formed around us for the Organization of Labour are composed of men provident , thrifty , and improving , and the readiness with which orders are given them , and the facility with which Cooperative Stores get customers , are proofs of the universality of the rule that all men help those who help themselves . Ion .

      Untitled Article

      MR . OWEN'S FIRST PRINCIPLE . The metaphysico-ethieal principle ( if I may so speak ) , laid down by Mr . Robert Ovven as the foundation-stone of his social philosophy , is a sad stumblingblock and rock of offence to many minds . To say that man is not a free agent , and that his character is formed for him and not by him , is a startling and repulsive announcement to ordinary thinkers , and to those who have never reflected deeply upon the subject of free will and necessity . People generally reject it at once as absurd nonsense or as a dangerous doctrine . Should they but bestow on it a few

      moments' patient consideration , I think they would come to a different conclusion . For instance , let anyone reason thus concerning it ;—Does a man ' s intellectual and moral character depend in the slightest degree on his physical organization ? If it docs , then just in proportion to that dependence is Mr . Owen ' s principle true , since no man is the author of his own organization . Again : Is man ever surrounded by circumstances over which he has no control ? and are those circumstances ever so strong in their influence as to compel a man to any particular course of conduct ? if so , then it follows that , just in proportion

      to compulsion is there wo free agency . And further , if the general conduct of a man is the evidence of his general character , and if that conduct were in every particular instance the result of circumstances over which the individual hud no control , then , just to that extent is his character formed for him and not by him . And it ' it be true that every act of the will , or act of choice , which is the same thing , is determined by some motive or other , and if it bo true that all our motives are governed by circumstances beyond our control , such as physical organization , curly education , und social position , all which act upon our mental constitution in various ways , producing

      various results , then , unless it be in our power to resist acting in obedience to the strongest motive , our will is not free . But it cannot be in our power to resist the strongest motive , because if it were , there must be a motive stronger than the strongest , which is absurd . Who , then , in any single instance can positively affirm that a man's conduct was not determined by one , or a combination or" all those three powerful elements , educution , organization , and social position ? And if it be impossible to affirm this , is ir . not equally impossible , consistently with truth , to affirm the free agency of man and to assert the contrary of Mr . Owen ' s first principle ? I should like the opponents of Socialism to refute this logic , or to cease

      their hostility to a system which , if carried out as it might be carried out , -would regenerate the world J ? . Gr .

      Untitled Article

      THE GALASHIELS COOPERATIVE PROVISION STORE . The Association is composed entirely of workingmen and women . Its object is to furnish eadh mem ' ber toith provisions at wholesale price , adding only the expense of management . Persons become members by taking one or more snares of 5 s . each . All goods are sold at reasonable market price , and the profits are divided annually amongst the members * accord * ing to the amount of purchases made by each ; but no member receives profit on a greater amount of purchases than thirteen times the amount of his shares

      The reason of which is , that each member deposits as much money in shares as is supposed will satisfy his wants for a specified time , which time this association has fixed at four weeks ; and as there are thirteen times four weeks in one year , so each , member turns over , or makes use of , his deposits thirteen times in the course of the year ; and as " profit" is just what is charged on the goods above what is necessary to pay the expense of management , so no member can justly claim more than the overcharge on his own purchases . This is made practicable by the members receiving

      credit to the amount of their deposits . The salesman keeps a ledger , and each member a passbook , into which all purchases are entered , and at the end of every four weeks the members pay for what they have received ; and if a member nave more money deposited than he can use in that time , it is so much dead stock , for which he gets nothing . This is to prevent jobbing and speculation . Twenty per cent , if the profit goes to form a sunk fund intended to extend cooperation to other branches of industry—to build , or purchase property for the use of the association , and to guarantee the officials from loss in the business should such occur .

      It was out of this fund that the baking establishment was started , and a shop for the sale of butcher meat is in contemplation . Retiring members are allowed seventy-five £ er cent , of their shares of this fund ; and , to prevent panic , such per centage can only be paid out of the amount of sunk fund for the current year or years to come . W . S .

      Untitled Article

      THE REDEMPTION SOCIETY . —VISIT OF THE PRESIDENT . I have visited the Welsh Farm four times at various seasons , and have no hesitation in saying , that with a sufficient amount of capital to develop its capabilities , as good and as heavy crops can bo grown on this land as on any in England . The drawbacks are unevenness of surface and a hilly country , which latter makes the management more precarious , but this defect can be best overcome by communities , because , by combining manufactures with agriculture , large numbers of hands can bo always at command to accomplish any ^ given agricultural operations at the proper time . The members of the Redemption Society and Communists in general

      ought to feel highly satisfied with the possession of such a valuable estate for the trial of their principles . Certainly , nothing equal to this has offered in Great Britain before . Moneys received for the week ending August 26 : — Leeds £ 1 18 \\ Hyde , j-er Mr . Bradley 0 7 b Week ending Sept . 2 : — Leeds : * £ ? i 4 Bradford , per Mr . Boys 0 10 Communal Buildings Fund : — Leeds £ 0 3 0

      Moneys received for the week ending September 9 , 1850 : — Leeds * 2 1 6 * Halifax , per Mr . ClmfFur 2 8 10 Driglingtou , per Mr . Clayton 0 4 11 Communal Building Fund : — Li-eils £ 0 6 0 Driprlington *> 5 <> Halifax •> 5 4 $ Anult-y 0 7 6 The Harvest Homo Festival is fixed for Monday , October the 14 th , in the Music-hall , Leeds . It is expected to be superior to anything the society has had before . David Green .

      Untitled Article

      AN AMERICAN ESTIMATE OF SOCIAL EVILS . Mr . Owen hns handed to us the following extract from a letter which ho lately received from a lady residing in America : — " How many great and terrible events have taken place since you left . It is a painful reflection to know how much blood has been spilt , tears shed , valuable lives lost , energy wasted , property destroyed ; and how little has been gained by it . How dearly do nations pay for every lesson they learn ! How blind are they to the causes of the evils that afflict the race ! How deaf to trumpet voice of truth , that constantly proclaims that national convulsions may succeed each other until the earth shall be devastated , and yet the thing they seek will still be

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      SlaanrMttt Iftngrm

      Untitled Article

      Sept . 14 , 1850 . ] QL % Z ZLt&tltX * 585

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 14, 1850, page 585, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1853/page/9/