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proper duties . If the police make a nocturnal razzia on the unfortunates by special order , they are assailed on all sides by portions of the press . If magistrates , yielding to repeated complaints from Kegent-street tradesmen , attempt to check an opjen display of foreign immodesty , a subscription is immediately entered into by the sympathizing frequenters of a niglit house in Charles-street , and the magistrate finds that a jury lend themselves to screen notorious profligacy , and that although he has done his'duty to "the public faithfully and conscientiously , lie is held up to obloquy and misrepresentation in the public journals . Our object is not to make the details of vice familiar —it is to give facts which , shall tell their own story , and enable the uninitiated public to decide whether
the steps that are taking or suggested for the correction' or one part of the existing social evil are such as are likely to accomplish their object . We are always averse to authoritative interference , but a police being indispensable , we would require the police to exercise a more direct surveillance over the maquereaux of the foreign prostitutes , who not only add to the number of the idle and depraved of this metropolis , but arc the means of bringing over whole shoals of foreign thieves , for whose accommodation various cafes and restaurants , presided over by . other foreigners of equally doubtful reputation , are rising in every direction of the west end of the metropolis .
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A . RS EST CELA 11 E AUTEM . The Pine Arts debate to which the vote for the National Gallery annually gives rise came off on Wednesday last , and unless good intentions be destined , as is ' -- proverbially reported , for a certain pavement only , the public * have reason to be gratified with tlie announcement made b \ her Majesty ' s present advisers . Attempts were made , year after year during the Palhierston dynasty to induce the -administration .: ' to adopt common sense views upon matters connected with the fine arts , and to induce some slight concession to public feeling . About
the Brompton Boilers , the lloyal Academy of Arts , and the National Gallery * -there , has . long been very little diversity of opinion out of doors among such as are entitled to form one or have the courage to express it . According to these persons the National Gallery is very ill managed ; its proper site is at Charing- cross , and noiohcre else ; and Lord Elcho's foi'mcr successful exertions to prevent its removal out of town and out of the public reach are worthy of all praise . The art collections , attractive and useful though they would be under the able management of the present staff in any central
situation , are , so long as they be condemned to isolation at South Kensington , nothing better than a permanent raw . No wholesale expenditure of the receipts in official puffery , no industrious publication of the amount taken at the doors ( small though this be , and absurdly less than that kept away by the inaccessibility of the show ) , no " novel attractions , " no " conversaziones , " can bring this piece of headstrong , supercilious bungling into favour . The artifices and waste of money iu touting- for visitors to these Brompton galleries , which
might be esteemed " smart" or improvident according to the bent of the observer ' s mind , in a Crystal Palace company , an omnibus association , or the owner of a monster circus , are simply derided by the bulk of middle-class Londoners . To speak the truth , a very important section of Cockneys conceivo themselves virtuall y debarred from many a visit to the fine-art collections by the difficulties of transit and the eccentricity of the situation , and no flimsy pretences of " tlic department" can convince us that Schools of Art instruction can be useful to our humbler fellow citizens of the -working classes , in proportion to their distance from the scata of their labours or their homes .
With reference to the lloyal Academy , tlie great public have long ceased to inquire by what right this favoured institution continues to occupy a public gallery , to the exclusion of the public collection of pictures . Ordinary taxpayers and amateurs of art have Ion" since given up in disgust all inquiry into the possible nature of the secret covenant in virtuo of which they aro thus defrauded long after discovery . Ministers pledged themselves to the House in 1 . 834 ' , and agaiu in 1850 , that the people should be admitted , when a real demand for space should occur , to the enjoyment of their own admirabl y placed Gallery . But through some mysterious influencethough the Vernon , and Turner , and other collections liavc since the latter of those periods been consigned to temporary and sometimes unworthy places of
exhibition or concealment- —the irresponsible academicians have been allowed to continue their obnoxious occupancy . The English school of art is nowise indebted to them , for in default of sufficiently assiduous and competent instruction , it devolves mainly upon the students in certain branches of art to teach themselves or one another . The Parliament owes them no courtesy , for they have refused or neglected to furnish returns long since required of them . They have , fortunately for our argument , never been inspired with the politic grace to open their doors gratuitously , or even at naif price , to the less opulent of the community . They have received all from the public ; iu return they have given to the public nothing , and to the arts how little ! and we now hear through
Lord Elcho of an impertinent proposition , put forward by their president in his other ' character ' National Gallery Keeper , that not less than 3000 / ., which , in fact , means at least SOOOZ ., shall be spent upon the enlargement of the public saloons at present open to us ; our amiable gratis lodgers vneauwhilc continuing to shut up for eight months of the year more than all the space we want , and to take a shilling toll at our own street-door during the other four . But if the promises of our present Chancellor of the Exchequer arc worth more than those of his predecessors , the days of their tenancy are numbered . If their accumulations arc insufficient to
erect an edifice of more suitable character for their exhibitions , it is certain that their revenue is ample security for adequate advances . On the public they should , at any rate , cease to be an incubus . Failing all other homos , they can negotiate for unfurnished apartments in the Brompton refuge , or treat for sonieof the eligible building land upon the estate of Her Majesty ' s fine arts commissioners . There they will be completely out of the way of the general public . -While accessible to the nobility and gentry , amateurs , p icture buyers , and others , who can travel to see sights , they will be secure from the intrusion of the profane crowd , whose pleasure and convenience they have hitherto so little consulted .
Poor OUo Mundler , the travelling " Expert dc la Galcrie Nationale de Londres , " whose position was secured b y a miracle a twelvemonth- ago , has been definitively sacrificed as a first victim by the iconoclastic majority , who will no longer be put off with general assurances of amendment , competency , economical arrangement , and so forth . This poor gentleman , whose function , unluckily , seems ' , to have been to raise the market upon his employers wherever he set foot , found no voucher
in the assembly . Messrs Cowpcr and Wilson , the defenders of the faith in the travelling chief director , could do little more than deprecate the abolition of the travelling deputy on the score of his insignificance . Ignorant as themselves , and , to all appearance , as every one else , of Herr Mundlcr ' s person , worth , and qualifications , we take leave to welcome this as an ample reason for his resignation , and for the immediate resumption of his legitimate functions by the present Director of the National Gallery .
The public can put up with fancy courtiers , sinecure cx-statesmen , and a moderate number of antique , deep-rooted jobs , but a sinecure Court-artist doing well-paid public work by deputy , is a weed of modern growth , and demands ' the hoc . We have no shadow of an objection to olFer to the Director-Gcncral ' s fitness "for his position . He is known to be an artist—known to be a scholar and a gentleman . And we will answer for itthough his incro presence near an Italian picture manufactory would of course enhance the price of the wares sold there as much as the profusest distribution of Hcrr Mundlcr ' s visitingcards—that he must be as well versed in the tricks
of the picture trade as Lord Elcho , Mr . Coningham , or Mr . Barker , of Piccadilly . If ; is precisely for those varied accomplishments that we have sought and found a valuable public servant , and in consideration of his excellency , honours , and emoluments , wo must insist upon his acceptance and personal performance of duties which there is reason to think ho has in error delegated to an incompetent lieutenant . To conclude : the frankness and alacrity with which the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted the cxistcnccof public wrong in these matters , or some of them , and volunteered on the part of his Government to attempt its rectification , must be acceptable to all lovers ot art , and , Mr . Disraeli may rest assured , will be placed by a not altogether undiscerning public to his credit . Wo wait anxiously for his next move in this matter .
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688 T H 3 ^ L . gAg EJg ^__„__ Lgo , 434 , July 17 , 1858 . I
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PAELIAMEN / TARY PEMMICAN . At the morning sitting , on Friday , Mr . Cox , the member forFinsbury , moved a resolution declaring that tbo cost of purifying the Thames should be defrayed by the consolidated fund and the metropolitan ratepayers in equal proportions . The proposal encountered a vinous opposition , and , notwithstanding Tom Uuncomtie ' sV ™ mentum ad homines , that as our country -visitors' and members of the Legislature help to make tlie stink they ought to help to . pay for its removal , was ultimately ne gatived . Now , -we subscribe to the doctrine that ' lon don ought to pay for its own improvements- as even " other town in the kingdom does . That should be the rule ; Init the case in question suggests the old remark
tliat there is no rule without an exception . A nuisance exists in London ; then London is bound to remove it . Granted ; but if tho nuisance was not only not created by London , but created against its -will ? Why , then not . Now , the foul state of the Thames is the work of the Legislature . Some years . ago , during the cholera panic , Mr . Poor-law Chadwick persuaded the Government that it was necessary to turn the contents of the London privies and water-closets into the Thames by opening communications between them and the sewers . Tlie evil to be avoided by this proceeding was problematical —persons who are entitled to speak with authority on the subject say chimerical . The evil which it has caused is undeniable—the evidence is under our noses .
lhe owners of house property . in- . ' London'complained of the enormous pecuniary cost to which Mr . Chadwick ' s ¦ whi m would subject them ; but their representations were disregarded , and an act of Parliament was pass « d to carry the project into effect . Since , then , the ' whole kingdom has , by tlie act of its representatives , corrupted the Thames , it is not unreasonable to expect that it should contribute towards the expense of its purification . If , however , it should be determined that London shall purify theThames at its own cost , as we believe will be the case , to London should be left unfettered discretion as to the wav in
which the object should be accomplished . At the evening sitting the motion of adjournment to Monday introduced a long list of subjects wholly unconnected with each other , but all mixed up together . As some persons may be puzzled to account for tlie discursive character vrhich the proceedings of the Commons assume at the end of every week , we beg to explain tliat it results from the rule which prevents a member from speaking twice on the same subject . Hence , when a member has " put a question to a minister— -say the Chancellor of the Exchequer—the latter docs not immediately rise to answer it ; because he knows that , if he did so , some halt-dozen other members , who want to put qHSStiuns to him , must go unanswered . In the meantime other ministers are put to the question ( the process
sometimes almost amounts to mental torture ) , and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer , at the end of two hours , or so , risas to answer the first question , the House has forgotten all about it . Some 'waggish reporter of the Times , of Saturday , gave to this part of tlie Commons ' . proceedings the heading De omnibus rebus , the aptness of which will be apparent from a recapitulation of the ingredients composing the parliamentary hotchpotch , which were as follows : —Destruction of Timber in the Gulf of Bosnia—Minister of Justice—Norman Chapel iu the White Tower —Sitting of Parliament in the Autumn—Compensation to Indigo-Planters in India —Public-houses in Scotland—Clothing of the Troops in India—Case of the Connacks—Church Rates—Papers about the Indian Mutiny—Forged Trade Marks .
As regards cliurch rates , the Chancellor of the Exchequer made the important announcement that" Ministers would tuko the earliest opportunity after the reassembling of Parliament , to nsk the . opinion of the Legislature upon a hill which they would introduce , in the hope and belief that it would be accepted as a satisfactory solution of a long-controverted subject . " The House having , at length , got into a Committee of Supply , the Education estimates gave riso to some tailk about the Nationul System of Education in Ireland .
Hitherto this system has been attacked only by p « Iiticians of the Spooncr and Newdegato school ; but now it was assailed from two opposite quarters—namely , IM . r . Buxton and Mr . Maguire . The latter gentleman cliiofly complained of a Protestant lady having boon allowed to read from a book some passages of a very objectionable nature when addressed to Catholic children , though it turned out that , in fact , she did not read them . The lady , however , ought not to have been permitted to introduce a book containing such passages into any
national school . Mr . lluxton's complaint was of a different character — namely , that tho Cliurch schools , in which it i .-J a rule that some portion of the Scriptures shall be read by tho scholars , during school hours , wore , on that account , excluded from the advantages of tho Parliamentary grant and educational syntorn . Considering Mr . lluxtoii ' s peculiar connexion , whose opinion ho may be Hiippo-ci- 'd to have expressed , tho circumstance may have 1111 important bearing on tho futuro of , the question . At yrcsent , statesmen do not like to meddle with a sulvject with respect to which anything thoy may do is suro to shock prejudices on onu aide or the other , and , porluips , on both sides . After tho House resumed , Lord Puhnoraton moved that
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 17, 1858, page 688, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2251/page/16/
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