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pubiu Mains.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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HYDE PARK LEGISLATION . The civil war in Hyde Park on Sunday last was got up by a feeble and pusillanimous Home Secretary , as the representative of dilettante statesmanship , and the instrument of a vacillating Cabinet . The history of the affair is before the public , and every one of our readers will be able to correct us if we narrate it wrongly . We do not intend to put any forced . construction , but simply to tell the story .
There is a place called Lambeth , built upon what was once the marsh-ground on the south bank of the river . The tables of the Registrar-General show that this spot of ground is less healthy than Most parts of London , It is not valuable for house property , and the rents are low . It follows that no person ? would live there except those who are instigated chiefly by local necessities , or by economy . Builders , therefore , have constructed houses adapted to a needy neighbourhood . The
district is inhabited by a large proportion of poor , and by numbers who get their bread how they can , by labour , or by other avocations which are not labour , but are beneath that honest calling . Some of the class work very hard from Monday morning till Saturday night ; others are very unthrifty ; and numbers arrive at Sunday morning without a provision for the meal of the day , or many
necessaries for the ensuing week . At another port of London called . Bethnal-green , there is fa neighbour hood very similar , with the difference that it is not marsh but clny , and is inhabited by a large proportion of hand-loom Weavers , ft is the Bolton of London , with iMiuWber of cottages in streets that look very lxKe a' / Manufacturing town Half deserted or palf ^ oTfie ' -to ruin . In both these di s tricts the Visitor will fiftd shops open on the Sunday , to
suit the overworked or unthrifty inhabitants . It is very painful to see this double , desecration of the day of rest and worship—a district so paupe rised that it cannot even provide itself with religious worship—so deadened that it is overtly and corporately unconscious of the seventh day . This is very sad , says the missionary or p hilanthropist , and he enters one of the shops to remonstrate . The shopman replies , with truth , that he would rather cloae on the Saturday night ; but that
if he does , his neighbour ' s shop will remain open , and that he not only will lose the custom for the day but all custom whatsoever . The shopman would like to be protected from , the necessity , which hurts both his conscience and his comfort ; but he cannot help himself . So he assures the visitor from a distance : and the traveller departs
prepared to say from bis own knowledge that the Lambeth or Bethnal-green tradesman would close his shop if he dared , and would gladly welcome a general measure to enable him by compulsion . Philanthropist gets a % w tradesmen to stand by him ; they form a society ; they comp ose a bill prohibiting Sunday traffic ; they ask the " popular " but aristocratic member for Middlesex to
introduce it to the House of Commons ; it is read a first time with the semblance of a protest from a few ultra-liberal members ; is carried by a majority of three to one , and the whole movement seems plain sailing . Petitions are sent up for the bill with comparatively few signatures , but the bill is already safe in the patronage of its dignified supporters . Petitions are sent up
against the bill with more signatures , but much attention is not paid to petitions nowa-days . Arguments are sent that the indigent classes cannot do their shopping before Sunday , because they are too hard worked , too late paid : " Too dissoluteUnd lazy , " answers the supporter of the bill . The arguments , therefore , receive no attention . Lord Robert perseveres , and the statement goes forth that he and the House of Commons are
about to prohibit Sunday trading m deference to the wishes of the humbler persons who will be affected by the measure . The latter part of the assertion is denied by journals and by individuals ; but superior to prejudice , Lord Robebt perseveres . Irritated at this obstinate misconstruction of their own wishes , the working classes come out in considerable numbers to show
themselves ; and also , they declare , " to see how the aristocracy spend their Sunday . " By the aristocracy the working classes mean those who ride in carriages , and now-a-days , since the landed families have become dependent upon the . money-lending classes , and subservient to the encumbrancers , the distinctions of the Herald are less true than the popular generalisation . JSow the carriage * keeping classes are represented in the Park on
Sunday by those who are enjoying a drive—a very harmless and very beneficial use of the day of leisure , but one involving the labour of horses and of men ; yet neither Lord Robeht Gjiosvenoh , nor Sir George Ghey , whatever they may desire , have proposed any bill to save the souls of those distinguished or leisurely persons by prohibiting Sunday driving ! The enormity is even shared by Bishops ; for two Lords spiritual were detected in their carriages on the Sunday before last .
"W ^ hen the working classes come , they come in great numbers ; and tho aristocracy always presume that they mean mischief . It was , therefore , assumed that if the working classes came to see how the aristocracy spend their Sunday they would break the law , that they would not only see , but act ; the police
were sent to prevent violence . Ihe police prevented tbe working classes from talking to each other—they could not prevent them from hooting—and the first Sunday passed as we know . Lord Robert disregarded the demonstration , and persevered . The next Sunday it was resumed , not only to see the exhibition of the aristocracy spending their Sunday , but also to exhibit bodily those working classes who protested against the measure that was said to have originated with them-Z ^ -, 4 . 4- *\ -npp vAnt violence . Ihe nolitv *
selves . The police now had orders to prevent everything , and they proceeded to drive the mob from the carnage-road with their truncheons . One hundred of the enemy from Bethnal-green , Lambeth , and other working regions , were taken prisoners ; many were struck down , and the law of truncheons sueceeded in driving home to the mind of the working classes a conviction , that if they
were to coine next Sunday , they must protect themselves , at least with walking-sticks . There was evidently established a crescendo , and a third Sunday must inevitably be more formidable than the other two . In a word , civil war carried on in Hyde Park has become a weekly custom in default of the opportunity of harmless recreation and refreshment .
Before this second Sunday , early in the week , an appeal had been made to Government , but although Lord Palmebston jauntily intimated a by-the- \ vay and merely personal opinion on his own part of dissent from the measure , the Cabinet had neither the courage nor the honesty to interfere . The ouly direct intervention on the part of Government lay in the nervous and excessive
preparations of Sir George Grey , the weak and violent Home Secretary of ' 48 , to protect Lord Robert Grosvenor , and to goad the multitude to disturbance in Hyde Park . The bill was abandoned tamely enough on Monday evening last ; Lord Robert Grosvenor confessing by that act that he was wrong in persevering with it , and confessing in words that he had not foreseen the irritation that it
would create . Here was a good easy lord professing to legislate for the inhabitants ol Lambeth , Bethnal-green , &c , without any real knowledge of tbe natives of those remote settlements . Lord Robert may hover on those confines of barbarism occasionally in a carriage , or obtain some factitious notion of their natives through a deputation , or hold conversations with picked men—intelligent persons , who tell him exactly what he expected to hear ; but he has not lived among the laces
natives—noblemen never do live in such p . He does not play Haroun-al-Rasciiid . He has no personal knowledge ; and yet we find him undertaking to be the representative man of Bethnal-green , the weaver of the aristocracy , tho tin-julate worker of the West-end . Cherishing phflanthropically the delusion that he was acting with that public , he declared himself to be quite safe from any molestation ; yet when the people sent an escort to accompany him to church on Sunday , ho kept out of the way , and then he withdrew his bill . The people had a perfect right to go to see how
the aristocracy spent their Sunday , since the aristocracy had been to Bethnal-green to see how the people demeaned themselves on that day . It was but tit for tat . The aristocracy had done no violence in Bethnal-green ; there is no roason to suppose that the people would have done violence in Hydo Park . The police struck first , and second , and third ^—and drew blood . This might have boon fojrq-Boen ; and when Sir George G ' aibr distributed , the crackskull force , ho . must have knowta that , from its weakness , frorn jts want of th ' pr cipline , and of weapons , it would naturally be , it must bo , indiscriminate itaq violent . , J | t
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There is nothing so revolutionary , because thereis nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to Keep thinefe fixed when all the world xs by the very law of itscreation in eternal progress . —De . Arnoi / d .
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SATURDAY , JULY 7 , 1855 .
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^ f * On and after this day , Fivepence will be the price for an Unstamped copy of the / Leader , and Sixpence if Stamped . A Stat . iped copy of this Journal can be transmitted through , the Post-office to any part of the United Kingdom as frequently as may be required , during fifteen days from its date , free of-charge ; but it is necessary that the paper should be folded in such a manner that the stamp be clearly visible on the outside . The Leader has been " registered" at the General Postoffice , according to the provisions of the New Act Telating to Newspapers , and it has , therefore , the privilege of transmission through the post beyond the United Kingdom .
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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . Durinjr the Session of Parliament it is often impossible to find room for correspondence , even the briefest . Communicationsshould always be legibly written , and on one side of the paper only . If long , it increases the ditucultv of finding space for them . , We cannotundertake to return rejected communications .
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• • it tftfB iiEABWS . [ No . 2763 ATtnaa * , - ' " ' ' " " " ' *' - ' ' - " --- ' •'• *' - ' ; ————¦————^—^ — _ _
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TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION TO " HHje fteafcer . " For a Half-Year ., * ° ° To be remitted in advance . i ^ - Money t ) rders should be draw n upon the Strand Brfncli Olfice , and be made payable to Mr . Alfeed E . GALLOWAr , at No . 154 , Strand . . No notice can be taken of anonymous communications Whateverisiutendedt ' orinsertionmust be authenticated by tho name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as aguaranteeof hisgoodfaith .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 7, 1855, page 644, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2098/page/8/
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