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shown the door : for there was something ludicrous in that episode : bnt he escaped a jeer even then—he walke d from his place as sedately and strollingly as if he had just presented a petition , as if nobody was looking at him . Brave men are always quiet men ; and he was subdued , but solemnly obstinate ; and that demeanour had its effect , in the end . Who could have gone through such a scene , and not blundered ? You , Jones , fancy yourself the centre of twelve hundred eyes , and the focus of six hundred voices , —would you not have given in and given way ? But this young
member , on Thursday , did not commit a single blunder ( that is , after the first indiscretion of provoking such an affair at all ;) and there must be elements of greatness in the man who , with few advantages and many disadvantages , could escape from such an , auto dafh . His withdrawing was a great piece of good fortune ; the tide turned for an absent man ; and members were at once stunned by the gallant defensive speech made by Serjeant Shee for his friend , and softened by his appeal to their sympathies . He is a fine , vigorous , vulgar fellow , that Serjeant Shee ; and the brain and the manhood he evinced in his fifteen minutes' talk should have
shamed the melodramatic Russell . He ended the row , and gave a turn to the view of the House , which put Mr . Duffy in a steady position for his appearance next day . ' It was the evening after : a headache in the aspect of the again thronged and expectant House—repentance on the Treasury benches—a sense of sname universal . In effect , the result was that Lord -John Russell confessed to have been too virtuously foolish ,
that the House , in agreeing to Lord John ' s " least said soonest mended" proposition to pass to business , owned to have been grossly wrong ; and that Mr . Duffy , the inexperienced man everybody had been advising or insulting the night before—stuck to his point , and became a hero for ever in Ireland . He reiterated his charges , generalising the meaning , and offered to particularize individuals , if it was wished ; and he gave his clear-headed account of the point nt issue in so modest but so firm a way , that there was no longer a chance of doubting the correctness of his accusationhe convinced in advance . " Well , " said . Lord John , elbows in hands again , "if you only mean that certain Irish members of this Government forswore themselves
in taking office with me , you only say what is matter of argument , and let us argue it in due opportunity . " There was a soda-watery cheer . Mr . J . Ball , with a del trem host of Irish members around him , agreed with Lord John—if Mr . Duffy only referred to tlio deserters from the Brigade to the Coalition Ministry , why that was not his business , nor the business of his friends ( mournful , nervous " hear , hear ' s" ); and he would leave the reply to the circumscribed charge to those whom it concerned . " Hear , hear , " from everybody ; but the same thought occurred at the same time to everybody , and every eye was turned on the full ,
healthy , reckless face of a stout little man on the Treasury benches , noted as nn intellectual sparrer . As Lord John and as Mr . Ball turned the matter , Mr . Keogh was placed in the dock as a man accused of political corruption . Bnt Mr . Keogh sat still . The House understood it all , broke up laughing , and radiated away to dinner , to wonder with one another what the country would think of it all ; what Duffy ' s case renlly waa ; and whether Hnyter had frightened Lord John not to push the difficulty into a committee-room . Lord John went out and chatted with Lord Clarendon , perhaps , about that young rebel journalist they had tried
bo hard , in ' 48 , to get out to Van Diemen ' s Land , and who was now a power in his " place "—talking his sanguine theories and foolish indignation , and utterly upsetting all the old routine arrangements by whicli Irish members have bo long been ke pt aa Treasuryrunucrs , and the neon ' s of good society . Yet Lord John had still kept up appearances with his umial perseverance ; and may to-day , out at Riclnnond , bask in the consciousness thut he had done his duty during the week to the constitution . His vote on Tuesday for the prosecution of Sir F . Smith , he followed up last night by a notice of a bill to disqualify all Government employes in dock-yards for the franchise ; and tlio
enlightened Ministerial benches welcomed that notice with ii sort of hear , hear , which meant—Bravo—Hero ' s a pure Minister—Mark that , you corrupt Tory gentlemen ! And no doubt Lord John in behaving with great moral courage : his countrymen with Government patronage cannot be trusted , ho he disfranchises them . Thoro ' it a fine moral in the notice for a highly civilized people ; but is it not odd ' that it Hhould he applied by tho groat " Reformer ? " A Reform Bill is duo : and Lord John brings in a measure of disfmncluncment ! If in dock-yards , bccaimo tho inoii wont bo houcHt , why not , in borongliH where f they don't choo » to bo ? Tho Radicals wore delighted with tlio noti ce last night , but tho priuciplo in a now one ;
and if they establish a precedent , they can hardly be disappointed when Lord John rises , April 1 , 1854 , elbows in" his hands , to complete the great work of his life , and says : " Sir , the period has now arrived when we may put the corner stone to the work we Whigs commenced in 1791 , and when , sir , we may propose the complete abandonment of the representative system /* ( Loud cheers . ) And it is notorious that Lord John is only waiting for Ms great Reform Bill to go up to the House of Lords .
The Radicals hardly seem to appreciate the course of events . The country is in . the humour , after such a week , in which the word " corruption" has been heard ofbener than any other word , to be led against the outrageous shams of the Constitutional organization ; and yet the Radicals only laugh when Mr . Drumrnond speaks , and are silent when Mr . Duffy is recklessly veracious . A man is now wanted to speak out the thoughts of the nation—to stifle the inanities of a Russell , and punish the roguery of a Stafford . We are drifting into terrible acknowledgments—all faith in nationality , and honour , , and duty disappearing ;
and the opportunity has come for a great man to grasp the real leadership of a shameless Parliament . Lord John Russell conceives , that though all the rest is rotten—from the Keoghs in the House , to the Tomkinses in the boroughs — he and his kind hold their heads , and breathe fresh air , above the ocean of filth in which the pilotage is facile—to stick : with majorities of 70 and 100 " in favour of . " But there is another sort of corruption at work which is creeping round them , and sapping the manhood of Englishmen . The confessions of the two Ministers on Thursday about the refugees were
dastardly : and even if England can afford , and tolerate the disgrace of a police system , admitted to exist by the Home Secretary , justified by the volunteer statesman , at least England cannot desire that her governors should be silly—and silliness is the characteristic of this fidgetty feeble effort to entrap refugees into offences against dead laws . Lord Palmerston looked meanly—was mean . Lord John , loftily inane , was a governor of the British Empire twaddling . We live so much in routine , that such words astound and shock when connected with the names of men of prominence and position . But it wa 3 impossible not to feel , watching the interpellations on Tuesday , that England had forgotten herself , in her anxiety about budgets
and emigration , to endure such men talking in such wise . The degradation was but insufficiently redeemed by the gallant conduct of the little Saxon group of Bright and Cobden , Walmsley and Stuart ; they said much , but not enough , nor what they said strongly enough ; and they spoke to a thin House , disposed to take for granted that two great Ministers could not be blundering . Mr . Bright spoke with noble impressiveness ; and Mr . Cobden with his usual courage , —this time happily directed —effectually prevented the too-dexterous Palmerston from quibbling away a painful fact . But Mr . Bright may be assured that , just now , the House of Commons is not to be managed by" etiquette : and that the people would bear and back him in the truth . Ho contrasted the visits of the Orleans family to Windsor with the visits of tho police to Kossuth ; he may connect them . A Stkanoee . Saturday Morninp .
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SAMUEL BAILEY ON FREE LIBRARIES . If you want to see a man of tho people in Parliament you will look to a constituency tho least likely to send liim—that is where ho will be elected . Westminster passes by William Coninghain , and Oldham chooses W . J . Pox . Oldhain might have been pronounced the very plncu least likely to have made so refined a choice . But working class towns are . not all vulgarity , nor is trade all sordidncsa . In March , 1841 ) , Mr . Ewart induced Parliament to pass a bill for enabling Town Councils to establish Museums of Art ; and Warrington , above all others , was the first town to establish a Museum and Library under tho Parliamentary sanction . In 1850 , a second act extended the borough power to tho formation of Libraries , when 39 G 2 burgesses of Manchester wore found to poll for the provisions of this net to be carried out ; and only 40 were . found ] M > lling against the proposition . Let us bo just to Manchester . There are some cities entertaining a . lofty scorn of Manchester ' s trading propensities , whoso burgesses will prove far less friendly to Knowledge when the question of a Freo Library is put to them . Sheffield , of democratic reputation , for some reason inexplicable and inconsistent , voted against tho proposal of a Free . Museum , or rather , it in snid , suffered judgment . to , go by default . It is mud that tho intelligent burgesses , too confident that tho motion would ho carried , neglected to voto . Yorkshire hud forgotten its Bharpness for once , for every man should liuvo voted , not only to insure the inousuro , but to liuvo sustained the reputation of
the town , by an immense majority-in favour of the proposition . Mr . Samuel Bailey , whose opinion not only his own town , but every English town , is glad to hear , has opportunely stepped in at this moment , and read one of his able papers on " Free Public Libraries' * before the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society . Sheffield , admonished by such a voice , will no doubt restore itself
in public opinion when , the proposition for a Free Library is next submitted to its burgesses . We are glad to find that Mr . Bailey ' s paper has been published in Sheffield ; and wherever Free Libraries are being proposed ( and they ought to be proposed everywhere where they do not already exist ) we should recommend the local reprint of Mr . Bailey ' s paper . The consent of that eminent essayist could , we doubt not , be easily obtained .
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SLANDBE ACCORDING TO IAW . Whenever the Home Secretary can spare time from bis foreign obligations to attend a little to the details of our domestic police , we shall recommend to his attention the case of Sir Peter Laurie , a gentleman who has been for a considerable time before the public , enjoying and abusing , to our great annoyance , all the immunities of the Oriental lunatic , and defying , by right of his hopeless incurableness , all the criticisms which a wemry press has for years been bestowing upon his erratic improprieties . Sir Peter , who , as a city magistrate , cannot Qf course be expected to knqw law , would scarcely be blamable if he only showed the ordinary density of an alderman ; the objection we takejto his proceedings upon the bench is that he combines "with
Mansion-house intelligence Quil p ish malignity : that Ms prejudices are not those of a Squire Western , the result of education , but those of a Sir Peter Laurie , the consummation of bad temper . His last and crowning effort to bring discredit upon the functions which , b y a strange oversight , he is permitted to discharge , appears in yesterday ' s papers , where a . case is reported in which this worthy alderman ' s tendency to satire , when disguised as a libel , and Ms partiality for wit , when divested of its point , shine forth in more than their usual splendour . A secretary to a soup kitchen appears charged with assaulting the officers of that institution ; we find his name in the first line of the report , and the fact that the summonses were withdrawn , without any proceedings being taken upon them , in the
last . MeanwMle , strangely enough , the report is a long one . Sir Peter Laurie , it seems , took very little interest in the case as it stood , but happened to be aware that a Mr . Charles Cochrane , against whom he evidently has either a Bpite or a prejudice , was connected with the City Hospice , at which the alleged assault took place . Accordingly , he devoted his intellectual energy to sarcasms upon that more or less meritorious man , instead of to an inquiry into the facts , and , forgetting their temporary relation , the worthy alderman entered into a conversation with , we- are quite sure , the equally worthy prisoners , touching their mutual foe , the Mr . Cochrane aforesaid . The witty alderman wanted to have seen Mr . Cochrano there ; ono of the complaisant gentlemen summoned did so too—he had an
execution out against him . There was " laughter at that , in which , no doubt , tho worthy beadles joined ; incongruity is always so amusing , and officials have always such a sense of the ludicrous when it descends from high places . But Sir Peter could not allow his prisoners to be more clever than himself ; ho was ironically astonished that people could be " gulled" by Mr . Cochrane . The prisoners were apologetic , pleading Sir J'itzroy Kelly as their example . Sir Fitzroy , though , says the alderman , has made himself notorious for being so simple . There "was , of course , no resisting this evident inclination of the bench ; the gentlemen who wanted the sumrn-mses against them withdrawn , vied with each other to gain favour with the alderman , in vilifying an absent man . One of thorn says he has dishonoured mils of Mr . Cochrano ' s ; the other says that Mr . Cochrano has belonged to many societies , and ( amiably ) that ho has always managed to be appoin ted tho treasurer .
Sir Peter exhibits more sagacity and receives more applause ; tho case is reported ; and a gentleman finds that io has been libelled without the opportunity of offering' a refutation . And this is city justice True , it may l > o thrown in our teeth , that it is exhibited against a man who made himself contemptible as " tho Spanish Minstrel , " and ludicrous as tho candidate for Westminster ; who wrote a book to show that ho had tho ability , equal to his inclination , to become an habitual seducer , and who , his wild oats having been , sown , took to charity as tlio road to IWliamont , and instituted soup-kitchens to provo that ho was a statesman . Still there is a difleronco between a man's being desirous of notoriety , and his always " managing to bo treasurer ; " and there is a still moro serious difference between logalizing flcandal whon it proceeds from tho bench , and proving charges of dishonesty against a man when ho is on hw trial .
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MojuutN Hokpticihm . —The infidelity of to-day iB a very different thing from tlio infidelity ' of a century ago . It was then -negative , destructive , and scoffing ; it is now positive , constructive , and often devout—almost always earnest . Tliere me men who lament over this change , and say that religion has ashore dangerous enemy in the unbeliever of to-day , tlmh in tho lei » HcrupuloW infidel of former times . What then , are qualities which we doom virtues in a Christian loss virtues in ii man whose belief is opposed to Christianity ? It is Hiinply suyiiig that wo would rather men were vicious , than be virtuous on any other principles than our * . —LAKQiroiiD ' Religion and Education .
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450 T H E L E A D E R . [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), May 7, 1853, page 450, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1985/page/18/
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