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no factitious aid ; we trusted to the good old cause , gentlemen . " Then there were loud cheers—the Liberals actually take a pride in having played to lose . Does not this explain everything as to the election P In electoral , as in other worldly struggles , people only get what they work for : and those , it is well known , who trust to gratuitous enthusiasm for the " cause , " are invariably lef t at the bottom of the poll . It was this obvious absence of any Liberal organization in the town , —a deficiency proved in all the . naive revelations offered ' to- the committee , - -that we commented
• upon in our former article on the subject ; and what has nowoccurred renders what we thon said all the more forcible , both in local and general application . In the first place , it is plain that in the case of Liverpool—there being no organisation for a caucus whidi could select—two or three old Liberals , knocking about 'Change , pick up a candidate , generally a very " dark" one . and in this instance a retired Indian judge , highly estimable , no doubt , but of whom the Liverpool and English public know next to nothing ; that
when one Liberal is in the field , other tentative Liberals must keep off , lest they should " split " the interest ; that , then , the contest lying between decided Tories and dubious Liberals , the Radicals , of whom , necessarily , there are vast masses in so great a town as Liverpool- —and in Liverpool having * the advantage of being led by one of the most energetic and able politicians in -the kingdom , Mr . J . R . Jeffrey—have no option but to oppose the Tories , which they generally do in a negative sense , by staying at home ,
leaving the few of their body who vote at all , to give a cold and reluctant vote . Hence , the bustle and energy on the Tory side , contrasted with the apathy on the other , leads to false impressions about the town ; and hence , also , as there is organisation on one side , and none on the other , and as the organised side , meaning to win , does not stick at offering pecuniary inducements to the few hundred corrupt , the Tories generally win , arid , as in this instance , just by the amount of those corrupt hundreds ,
the " freemen . " What occurs in Liverpool occurs in all large towns , -where the leading " Liberals " do not happen to be also " Radicals , " for the Tories are a compact body , fighting against a divided body : against the Conservative-Liberals , busy old gentlemen knocking about 'Change , and the ardent and earnest woi * kvng-men voters , who have had no opportunity of selecting their own man . The moral , therefore , is , simple enough : — Let the Radicals , wherever they are strong enough , organise , and talce the initiative out of the hands of the old " Liberals" knocking about ' Change . But a further inquiry , which arises
out of these Liverpool proceedings , is , why , when the existence of the corrupt class is known , and when it is also known that this corrupt class turns the election , should the Liberals not play the same game as the Tories P It appears that at Liverpool , when the polling was half over , and the " freemen" were making terms with the Tories , ono Liberal gentleman said to another Liberal managing gentleman , " The Tories are giving 5 s . a head : let ua give 10 . 9 . a head : 500 Z . will eain us the day . " But the Liborals , though
certain of their defeat , refused to win on such terms ; and very many Liberals , taking the usual artificial point of view , will say they did quite right , We do not discern this exalted morality . Tno Liberals are supposed to be fighting now for a reform bill , which will got rid of the corrupt classes , and , waiting that deliverance , they may surely turn the weapons of corruption against the corrupt . Supposing that they had
Spent thia 500 ? . in bribery , confessing it openly , and winning , with a protest against the moans , and supposing that the Tories , with much moral indignation , had petitioned , would it not be a great advuntago to have , in tho committee , two parties combining to prove tho corruption of tho present electoral syRtom P Ono such spectacle in a Parliamentary eominitfceo , with such a background as , Liverpool , and wo should bo a littlp more confidont about tho tone of Lord John ' s
bill for next session . Let us , however , grant our Conservative contemporaries what they insist upon . Let us admit that a bond fide majority of tho existing © lectors of Liverpool do , aa a rulq , prefer wornout old Tories to worn-oufc old Liberals—which is the average comparison . . But ia not tM very fact , of buoU a limitation of choice , and of euch . a rcuult , the moat decisive condemnation of tho
present electoral system P ' I * Or about- Liverpool are" half a million of prize people of Great Britain ; and on the register are about 12 , 000 electors—1500 of these beings generally , bribable , ! ' freemen" cum privilegio ; , arid 7000 ou . t-of the 12 , 000 being voters of that well-to-do and careless commercial' class , w . ho , whfen they peek a candidate , seek merely , a man competent to look well after the local and strictly mercantile business in the House of Commons . Is that a state of things with which Liverpool should be content , or with which England should be content for her first port ? Is it fair to infer front the recorded votes of the 12 , 000 , what are the view ? of the first port about national politics ? Let ; us at the same time point out that jf national suffrage were extended to Liverpool to-morrow , the tendencies of Liverpool would still be questionable . The " first port" is not very English . One thousand of the present , electors are Irish Catholics—perhaps a fourth of the whole population is Irish , and not exclusively Catholic Irish , or the pulpit influence of that , distinguished Orangeman , Dr . M'Neile , would be unaccountable . There are probably more Scotchmen in Liverpool than in any Scotch town , Glasgow , Paisley , and Edinburgh excepted . A fourth of the Jews of Great Britain are centred in Liverpool . There is an immense naturalised mass of Germans . There are many hundred Greek merchants . There are many hundred Yankee merchants . . Very mixed influences are , therefore , at work in such a community ; and its elee ^ tions , under any system , would be exceptional in character , tinder the present system , Tories being almost invariably elected , it is- simply absurd to suppose that the first port holds Lord Derby to be the only current British statesman .
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RESCUE FOR CHILDREN IN THE STREETS . The measures introduced by Lord Shaftesbury in the Upper House , and fry Mr . Adderley in the Lower , for the State education of juvenile mendicants and criminals , though not likel y to be finally carried this session , will unquestionably be most serviceable towards the ventilation of the highly important subject with which they deal . Simple as is the principle involved , and plainly demonstrable as is its correctness , a sad experience makes it obvious to us that there are many sturdy hobbies and inveterate prejudices
which it must outride , or override , before it can arrive at the goal of JParliamentary success . -We advocated it before Lord Shaftesbury , and will advocate it with him , in firm hope of a happy end , but not in any expectation of an immediate triumph . Only on Wednesday last , Sir Gr . Strickland opposed a Bill providing compulsory vaccination for the poor , because , he said , it was an infraction of the voluntary principle ; and suggested that it was meddling with the liberty of the subject not to permit every free and independent infant in this glorious country to have and spread
the siriall-pox if the small citizen ' s fond mother pleased . Obviously , it must take this kind of perception some time to consider how far Milton , or Feargus O'Connor , or any of the other historical Liberals , with whorri the Strickland class have a confused sort of acquaintance , would have approved of the apparently tyrannical course of removing a young pickpocket from the roof of his affectionate parents , or teaching a hopeful mendicant that he has a vocation a little higher than to beg . Vice and small-pox are both contagious ; . it' tho voluntary principle requires us to
let infants , who object to having their arms punctured , disseminate tho ono disease , why should it not give ruffian fathers permission to spread tho other P It must be sometime , too , after conventional radicalism is satisfied , before Mr . Lucas and Mr . Newdogato can arrange upon a course of instruction which both can support , and before the oocpnomiats can decide whether criminals , inexpensively educated by tho Devil , and subsequently strangled us frugally as possible by tho State , aro or are not , on tho whole , preferable to citizens htt
, boug—amore , perhaps , than they wore worth—in the cheapest market , and likoly , prudence may suggest , to bo sold for Iohb than tho cost of thoir bringing up , ovon in tho dearest . These considerations aro not of tho sort to lead to prompt conclusions ; but we aro thankful that a subject which wo have formerly taken uphopefully—from a sense of its importance , lias at length forced itaolf upori tho attention of Parliament at all . Once fairly launched and honoBtly advocated * a proposition , like Lord ShilflfoHbUry ' s , or Mr . Addorley ' e , if reagonubly modified aa to
avails ana maclimei ^ , ryfeiofc M ^> altimate success . Lefrus butvkeep in sight fae importance of the ( end , thd simplicity of tne . ineans , the sincerity of the ' proposers , and the ' go ^ d , sense of the Legislature ; we need not then doubt of a measure , such as the noble lord asks , if not exactly identical with , his own or JSir , Adderley s , being carried in the coursie of next session . The case is easily established . Whoever walks the street , whoever ; reads the police reports , must see daily instances of involuntary mendicancy and crime into whicjh children , knowing nothing of right and wrong , are forced by parents who own no law , but the police , and no in sued
gospel but the Newgate Valendar . cases magistrates find themselves m the most awkward of dilemmas . The accused is guilty in act , but not in will } has done wrong , but has exercised no choice in doing it . To send Jiim to prison . is to punish where there was no . f in , because . no volition ; to discharge him . is to remit . bint to society the most corrupting , and to exampieB the most pernicious . . What hope is yiefe in either case for the child ? . Hei cannot distinguish between these rival authorities , , to neitli 6 r . of which he owes anyi obligation , or renders ' any
allegiance but that of the brute , dreadnig ^ tnpes He has been ordered to beg or . steal , arid he > as suffered penalties for bis dbediencfe . He has , no charities to be thankful for at the hands of his kindred ; no justice to ackhbtvledge at the hands of the State ; and being , too young ^ a ^ yet openly to rebel against either the mjanicibal or the domestic authority , he must choose the lesser evil , and be most submissive where he ;; i £ most liable to oppression . So the fatlier , more . assiduous than the magistrate in his corrections * carries the day ; and the child , whatever its
original dispositions or capacity , develops into a lawless vagabond man , whose career , of vibe is bounded only by his extent of cunrimg . The State , being constitutional , has not hastily interfered ,- and the- subject , having been friendless , learns , for the first time , in the condemned cell , of a God , whose existence he is informed of by the chaplain , and , on the gallows , of a Government , whose functions he . finds incarnate in the hangman . . He and . the literary gentleman connected with the Establishment find time to , comin poi
pose a last dying speech , objectionable ^ nt of orthography , but , they say , unexqep'tiqnable as to doctrine , the moral of which is that penitent thieves are a favoured class , arid that & career of crime needs only the intervention , before the last act , of an indefatigable Ordinary to end in a Crown of glory . The rabble disperse ^ the sheriff goes home ; and at ten o'clock next morning juvenile offenders , who have been diversifying their entertainments at the execution by occasional sportive pocket : picking , are assuring his
Worship at Bow-street that on their honour it was another boy that did it , and that anyhow they will never do it again . And , perhaps , they would not if they could help themselves . Of course it is not assumed by Lord Shaftesbury or Mr , Adderley ,, or those who agree with tern , that their bills will work miracles , or that tho children educated under their operation will be faultless . It is , however , believed that both
virtue and vice are matters of training and of growth , capable of eradication as of culture , and dependent upon , the circumstances in w ^ hich they are placed fop tho turn , they may take ., It will not be a sufficient reply , to us to aay that some of these compulsorily educatp 4 children may , anjd perhaps will , go wrong ; we answer that at present they have not tho chance of gping right . We haye little sympathy with the despondency which is pleaded as excusing a neglect of duty .
Another objection taken is , that to educate mendicant or criminal children , and iiot others , is to put a premium on mendicancy and crime . It might Aa Well be objected that to bring up bastard children was to put ft premium on fornication . Iri each case the parent ir . ay bo placed under contribution , or failing thafy made to suffer penalties , by the law ; but the child should not
suitor , tor it haei not sinned . Lot uh have a Rational Education by all means , but till we get it , do not lot \ ia justify having none by the impossibility of our Obtaining all of our demands . It can bo but slight comfort to tho poor honest man to know that in addition to not educating his children , and indeed by way of justice to him , wo ore permitting thieves to-increase and multiply by the thousands' —If possible to tob ; * ad most probably to corrupt thwxu
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 23, 1853, page 710, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1996/page/14/
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