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    Untitled Article

    Labours , caie half knew as much as the other half cared as little what was the real bearing of the issue they-were called together to pronounce upon ? What a solemn sham has railway legislation been throughout , with its endless string of incomprehensible and impossible standing orders , its double committees , its double debates on the same bills , while all the time the sham was in progress a foregone conclusion had been , in many notorious

    instances , arrived at . How loudly and unanimously Parliamentary agents , engineers , Parliamentary advocates , lawyers , landowners , Peer and Commoner , with their several ravening cliques , have throughout raised rejoicing pseans at the perennial prospect of tuoKmited pillage of helpless shareholders , let some embryo railway Macaulay record for the wonder and warning of posterity . But notwitkstanaing all this misdirected , interested , and unceasing Governmental interference , what is the upshot of Parliamentary supervision . To parody slightly the words of the poet , it has only

    produced—, " A mighty mess , and all without apian , " Looking at the monstrous and overpowering heap of absurd , unjust , and contradictory discussions to ¦ which Hailway Committees and Parliament have- recently lent themselves—the bewildered bystander may truly exclaim , " Chaos is come again . " Just for a moment glance at the glorious confusion , the unaffected dismay which Legislative dabbling with private enterprise has spread , and is spreading , throughout the railway world—for a little world it is in itself- —with its capital of three

    Imndred millions sterling , and its dependents for income and subsistence , numbering tens of "thousands of families , of every social grade and rank . All this vast multitude is now looking about them in well-founded despondency and apprehension at the gradual depreciation of the market value of railway shares , at the more rapid diminution of dividends , and at the dismal possibility of some further piece of parliamentary mischief . The call for investigation into the causes of this disastrous condition of things is universal . But what

    real good would result from investigation ? Truth , winch lies at the bottom of a well , would , we fear , in the case of railways , have to be looked for in a ¦ well with no bottom . The tale of one company , whispered into the ear of a committee of the ordinary mental calibre , would be supplanted by the opposing statement of another company ; the conflicting interests of lines , made rivals by parliamentary sanction , would so pervert fact as to baffle inquiry and render hopeless any useful or practical result .

    Who could venture upon the Herculean and Augean task of -wading through the mass of acts of Parliament * the array of alliances , traffic arrangements , and amalgamations of any one of our leading railway companies ? JEar uno disee omne . Let us take the London and North-Western , the head of the railway interest , not only as respects the magnitude of its capital and the extent of its territories , but as standing confessedly at the head of all those improvements in every department of the railway system which has made British railways the model and example of all other railways throughout the world .

    What do -we see at this monent P Why , that this noble undertaking is sustaining serious damage and depreciation solely through mischievous , contradictory , and incomprehensible legislative interference . Here we find a railway specially sanctioned b y Parliament to- supply travelling facilities to a specified portion of the manufacturing districts , performing all its engagements to the public -with honourable fidelity , sometimes e ^ ren to tho loss of their shareholders , encroached upon right and left with permission of Parliament by companies , one established to go in a totally opposite direction due west , tho other duo north . JDrivca into retaliation by encroachment—wo have reason to assert that for years past , whatever wiav have he ™ f . l ™

    oxternal aspect of the Company ' s policy towards other lines , its sincere desire has been for a fnir ndjusttnent of conflicting interests—the directors thus threatened on both sides , have been obliged , in defence of the property and incomes of tlwue Urge body of proprietors—yto may fairly go twcthei : and add , in defence of the true interests of the travelling and commercial public—to enter into a system of protective and retaliatory ppUcjr , by leaainga and amalgamations , and to retort with damaging effect to itself , and yet more damaging effect to its rivals , the aystem . of losing f » W » by , dill lower fares . The London and North ; i

    Western refused to obey the stand and deliver demand of rival lines—they repelled -with subcess for some time the attacks on tlieir shareholders purses —but succumbed at last because Parliament threw in _ its weight to legalize this system of moral brigandage . Matters , it is clear could not be permitted to remain in their present disastrous condition . Parliament , which lies at the root of all the mischief , has at last taken up the question , 'and proposes to doctor the wounds it has inflicted by the usual nostrum of a commission . The London and North-Western embody a modest suggestion in the form of a petition , the substance of which is all -we can make room for . "

    Parliament , " say the petitioners at the outset , " has never laid down definite principles for the construction of a national system of railways- — -committees on private bills have determined piecemeal and separately , what lines should be made and who should have them . The decisions of these committees have necessarily been conflicting and uncertain ^ uselessly expensive , and encouraging the aggressions of companies on each other . Bad legislation has forced combination on every railway company ; combinations though held to be illegal , have been sustained in some remarkable instances by judicial decisions , but set aside sometimes by Parliament , and the parties punished by legislation

    in favour of some other company , that company being as often deeply involved in such agreements as the company it has denounced . " Here is a precious picture of the wisdom of hereditary and elected legislators . Here is a telling specimen of the fitness of Parliament to deal with matters of a purely commercial character . The picture is by no means overcharged ; its tone might ¦ have been deepened without any violation of the rigid truth . The directors , in conclusion , content themselves with beseeching Parliament to lay down ,

    even at the eleventh hour , " some general declaration of principles by the application of . which railway committees might be guided to uniformity of decision . " It is indeed the shameful fact that the Legislature has hitherto had no guiding principle ; it has legislated for railways at random , as particular interests or cliques have been able to command a majority of votes , and the result is the discreditable jumble everywhere perceptible in railway decisions , and the irreparable disasters which are overwhelming the greatest public boon of any age .

    This condition of things must cease ; if the abuses of railway legislation are not speedily reformed from within , they will stand a chance of being reformed by pressure from without . Public opinion is being concentrated on tins blot in our legislation , ana public opinion will make itself felt and respected- Carpe diem , say we , and , as the readiest means of showing the public that Government have taken the hint , let them do what they ought to have done at the outset—adopt the practical suggestion of the London and North-Western petition , " lay down some general declaration of principles which shall ensure uniformity of decision among railway committees .

    Untitled Article

    PROPRIETY" AT LARGE . Our " Postcript" will no doubt announce that the duchesses' fete at Cremorne has come to pass without material interruption by those interested in disturbances . Tho usual police manifesto to coachmen and others has made its appearance , and the subjoined elegant extract is supposed to warn the jarofamim vtdgm from the premises on Friday : — i ^ REMORNE . —SPECIAL NOTICE . —Tho public KJ are respectfully informed tliat tho GARDENS will be CLOSED on FRIDAY NEXT , July 9 , Laving been engaged for a charitable purpose by a committee of gentlemen for a private ffifce . From the silly vacillating form of this advertisement , it would appear that tho " committee of gentlemen , " of whom Lord lngcstro is supposed to be the moving spirit-, were rather puzzled to account to their usual associates in . those questionable bowors for the apparent incivility of substituting modest company for one night , only . We are not of those who can regard this proceeding as an insult to either middle or lower ranks . Ihe ladies and gentlemen of the former arc , as all tho world knows , no visitors of Cicmornc . The latter—at loast so it was pleaded when tho closure of this place of amusement was on the tapis—arc of a class whose conditions of lifo demand early rising nnd early rest . Their hours would no more coineido or clash with those of a kte nnd select crowd of fashionables than with thoso of tho loose

    unvouched frequenters of the place . The denial of such society and such hours would be practically no grievance . The wrongs of season-ticket holders ( sometimes falsely corn-pared to the debenture admissions into theatres ) entirely vanish when , the " ticket , as usual with such documents , carries a sti pulation for its own invalidity on particular occasions . For others a sufficient answer may be found in the right of the proprietor to do his will with his own , and the ample notice given of his intended arrangement .

    It is impossible to blame the managers of the entertainment for avoiding , by all means , the contact of loose company with the ladies of their circle or deny them the same right of exclusiveness at Cremorne-gardens as we willingly concede to them at Almaek ' s balls . But we cannot help censuring the bad taste of English gentlemen , who , with every possible resource for killing time at their full disposal , have volunteered to introduce and to escort maids and matrons of condition ^ and , we hope , respectability , to a place of resort , which in their own minds , at least , is associated with the lower pleasures only . The empressement with , which the proposition has

    been welcomed , and the imposing list of adherent patronesses , are deplorable proofs of a falling off from ancient self-respect and love of purity among " the upper ten thousand . " No such welcotne would have been extended to a proposition of the kind in our own class . The every-day Paterfamilias would have shut up his house ' s ears , and luta good lady "would have tightened little Jessica ' s leadingstrings at the first broaching of the idea . But , as it is , every budding rake and worn-out roue of the fashionable world , who passes night after night in the loosest company that the attractions of Cremorne can concentrate for his use , may , on Friday , be the cicerone of a virtuous woman , to whom it

    were idle to say the reputation of the place is unknown . Is it too much to imagine that he may , after that , open to his fair partners other pages m a book which the bootless ventilation has already spread too widely before the eyes of youth and innocence ? It is , seriously , a step in the wrong direction ; but yet another moral lurks within tlie conclusion , to which we are led by the interpolated " charitable purpose" of the public advertisement . We Lave hope that while young , and fair , and giddy , revel through the night in this well-known focus of the '' great social evil , " some noble dames of power and wealth may fall to charitable musing upon the sins and sorrows of the class who furnish its habitual

    visitants . In the present advanced state of public information , it is aLmost superfluous to suggest that the indiscriminate and relentless pressure of . the sex upon its own stray sheep has swollen this evil to its present dimensions . It is in the power of the sex . alone to relax that pressure to prevent , alleviate , and cure much of this evil ; and it is time for them to begin so to act , for the preacher and teacher have prayed and taught in vain , as they ever will about it . If an evening at Cremome should start such train of thoughts among some

    few only of the clever , high-hearted women who will be present there on Friday , more service will have been done to a good cause than could be effected by all the exertions of preacher , teacher , or policeman , or all the dissections propounded by the leading journal as the productions of positive , comparative , and superlative " unfortunates ; " and the best excuse for tho bnd taste of tho promoters of this pilgrimage of May fair to Brompton , is in the possibility that so important a rapprochement of caste and outcast , as the alternate occupation of a lustgarten , may be attended with some such result as we have hinted at .

    Untitled Article

    THE JEWS . Tub Tories are in dismay—their leaders have left them in tlio lurch . Derby and Disraeli hsivo formally pronounced in favour of senatorial Judaisni y at loast one has given up his active , the other his passive , opposition , The Tory organs and orators arc spluttering anathemas against political traitors , and the saints aro braying in concert . In the polished phraseology of the Seven-dials wo nsk , vVlwit ' s the lwf On Thursday week another blow was fairl y struck nt transmitted intolerance , another kick niflioled a tergo on Christian bigotry , another leaf added to the laurel which crowns the statue of enlightened Liberalism . The Premier , on that day , declared in tho House of Peers that it was hopeless to struggle any longer against the loudly expressed will ot the nation ; in . vain to ig u ? * tho spread of a purer and more cosmopolitan spirit

    Untitled Article

    662 THE IiE j ^ JgJ k _ P ? o . 433 , July 10 , 1858 .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 10, 1858, page 662, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2250/page/14/