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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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THE QUEEN'S SPEECH . The Address delivered by her Majesty . at the commencement of the twenty-second legislative session of her reign may be fairly characterised as being fitly in unison with the tranquil temper and nior derate expectations of the country . To the great majority of the nation , who are as much opposed to standing still as they are undesirous 01 rash or experimental change , the promises of useful work cut out for Parliament during the next few months will be hailed with quiet satisfaction . What the Ministerial proposals of Electoral Reform may be , we must wait a few days to learn , and until we do we must reserve all further discussion regarding them . About other ' amendments of the law there
will be little difference of opinion . The simplification and cheapening of proceedings in Bankruptcy and Insolvency will be a great practical boon ; the assimilation of the criminal Juvvs of the United Kingdom , and their accurate codification , will obliterate from the statute-book many anomalies and scandals ; and above all , the application to England of the principles found to work so well in Ireland respecting the sale of land , the concession of a ' n indefeasible title , and a complete registry of title deeds , will justly earn for the present law advisers of the Crown the commendation of all thinking men . Wo regret to observe the omission of to settle the vexed of
any promise long- question Church Rates . It will bo iu vain for Lord Derby and his colleagues to shirk the matter . Public opinion and the decisions of the courts of law concur in declaring the existing state of tilings unmaintainable . It is uliko shameful and injurious to the Church Ihafc caoh parish should be exposed to . scotarian conflict from year to year about the repair of ecclesiastical edifices . Pcrhups , like tho Jew Bill , tho settlement of tho question may originato with some private member of Parliament , and that Government think it more prudent to prove to , their obstinate adhorents their inability to resist J , its progross , than , by undertaking a measure of their own on tho subject , to provoke mutiny and desertion in their ranks .
To what is said respecting tho necessity of increased expenditure on the navy , nobody can with reason object . Maritime warfare has been rovoluuonised by the use of steam , and wo have no choice put to . adapt ourselves to tho ohango aa rapidly as possiblo , cost what it may . Thoro will bo nil tlio more reason , however , to look with inexorablo and aearolnng economy into every other branch of naval expenditure . Wcf are glad to llnd nothing said in iftYQui : of burying . more of tho people ' s money in
coast fortifications , which , with exceptions few and far between , we hold to be nothing but enormous and egregious jobs . The Commission of Inquiry for the best Mode of Manning the Navy has not . yet made its report ; it would be therefore premature to introduce the subject in discussion . Popular sympathy , however , and popular instincts , which are seldom very far wrong in what concerns the permanent interests of the country , point to the improvement of the condition of our sailors and pur ships , and to the outlay of public money upon them rather than its investment in earth-mounds or bastions , counterscarps or batteries . The great use of every additional sea fortress is to provide a pleasant and profitable place for some incapable of good connexions . to go to sleep in the capacity ot Governor or commandant . We have enough ot futh costly perches , and enough of such gaudy birds of prey already . We will have no more of
them . * . t ' i : - » r i The cautious language in which her Majesty reviews the present aspect of foreign affairs will no doubt be read with chagrin and disappointment by every reckless partisan of Austria or of France , at home and abroad . The dignified utterance of the national resolution to keep the peace with all our allies so long as they abstain from doing us any wrong , would , under other circumstances , be a mere platitude . It is not so , however , at the present juncture , when notoriously our active aid is sought by the despotic ruler of France in his . schemes of territorial or family asgrandisement : in Italy , and when , upon flip othfir ' hand , the untaught and unteachable
tyranny of Austria , which is driving the Italians to the madness of despair , would fain have us guarantee her from the consequences 6 f its infatuation . There is one caustic phrase , indeed , m this portion of the Speech which will not pass unobserved , lhe Queen assures the estates ' of the realm that to cultivate and confirm friendly feelings with the other powers of Christendom , and " to maintain inviolate the faith of ' public treaties , and to contribute as far as her influence extends to the preservation of the
general peace , are the objects Of her unceasing solicitude . " . ¦ . ' , ! ¦ ¦ - There would be no sense or meaning in -the expression " public treaties , " if treaties of another description were not present to men ' s minds . We all know that such is in point of fact tlie case ; and that amid all the show and parade of intimate alliance the present ruler of Fiance has for many mnnilis hftpn Rontractins : obligations secretly and
furtively with Sardinia and other States , with a view to the accomplishment of dynastic changes in the south of Europe . These private treaties , whatever bo their purport or tenor , the Sovereign of England disclaims all intention of regarding . It is with the public ties subsisting between nation and nation that she has alone to deal . It is wise and just that the distinction should be unmistakably marked / and that the steady ways of absolutist diplomacy should be declared not to be our ways . Simultaneously with this intimation , a graceful acknowledgment is made of the disposition of the
French Government to abandon the system of compulsory emigration from the east coast of Africa , which ' in practice has been found indistinguishable from the slave trade . Nothing is aaidof Lord Malmesbury ' s negotiations ' with America about the right of search , a tolerably significant proof that they are likely to come to nothing . Meanwhile evidence has been given of the readiness of the present Czar of Russia to renew the relations of friendship formerly subsisting between his country and ours—a readiness which it is possible certain continental
politicians view with anything but feelings of satisfaction , For ourselves wo have no fancy lor political intimacy with any of the despotio Governments of the Continont ; but if we wore compelled to choose , wo must prefor that which is the most remote and the least embarrassing to us in overy point of view . It grows daily , wo think , moro and more manifest that whatever suggestions of an anti-Austrian kind Russia may have made to France , she has no intention at present of being involved in hostilities with her ungrateful neighbour for tho profit or pleasure of the House of Bonaparte .
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OFFENSIVE TRADES . Am , good children aro taught to believe that if tho boys who poltod tho frogs with stones could only have been made aware that what was sport to them was death to tho reptiles , they would at ohco have desisted from thoir amusoment . Tho experience of later life does not confirm the truth of this moral .
We arfe disposed , on the contrary , to entertain a less ple asing belief that the knowledge of the fact iii question would have added an additional zest to the entertainment . There was , in fact , but one thing wanting to complete the felicity of the youthful persecutors , and that was an innate and unreasoning conviction that in some form or othei the frogs were " hosies humani generis ''—creatures by whose violent extinction some great moral nrinciDle Was vindicated , or some great social refornc
advanced and perfected . These several conditions of complete beatitude—an interesting pursuit , s victim to whom that pursuit is fatal , and a moral purpose to be promoted by the ruin of the victimare fulfilled in the instance of those parochial authorities who rule over our sanitary system . Ii is therefore , with no fond and foolish hope o ; softening the hearts of the persecutors , but from i desire to appeal to the public , who from their posi tion are debarred from participating in the pleasurei of persecution , that we venture to say a word pi behalf of a very hardly used class of men , the chemical manufacturers of London . ; ¦ . We all know when and how the Nuisances Removal Act was passed . We were then in a state of panic . The recollection of the cholera was imminent
vivid ; the probability of its return was . Something must be done , was the universal feeling . An outcry was raised against all persons ^ engaged in offensive and unsavoury trades . Their factories , it was asserted , polluted the atmosphere , and they themselves grew rich by breeding pestilence among their neighbours . The dog was given a bad name , and hanged accordingly . A bill was passed ^ giving the police magistrates summary authority to _ impose a series of rapidly ascending fines , and , if expedient , to order the immediate cessation or the process of manufacture and the removal of the offensive materials of trade . With the act , regarded as a
temporary and immediate measure , we have no great fault to find . The doctrine of Caiaphas , " that it is expedient that one man should die for the people / ' however much theologians may rail against it , is in practical life a sound and a . wholesome one . It was needful , or , what comes to the same thing , it was deemed needful for the good of the state that something should be done , and somebody should be sacrificed . It is the way of our country ; and if in this instance the manure makers ^ and bone-crushers , and refuse collectors of the metropolis happened to fall victims to the salus reimtblicee . they have no lust cause for complaint .
Now , however , that the sacrificial mania has been appeased , and that the public are able and disposed to look fairly at the question , it is worth while considering what the practical effect of this revolt tionary measure has been hitherto , and how far the general interests of the country ,, as well as the ends of justice , are perverted by the continuance of this state of martial law to which at present our chemical factories are subjected . The public ought never to forget that the existence of what are technically termed offensive trades is absolutely essential for their own comfort and wellbeinc If there were no persons who collected and
made a profit out of garbage , refuse , and offal , these nauseous substances wo * uld either decay and putrefy in our streets , or would have , to be destroyed at a great expense out of our own pockets , and probably in a far more offensive and less efficacious manner than at present . The promoters of offensive trades are , literally speaking , public benefactors ; but however philanthropic they may be , it is not probable that they will coiitinue their trades when they cease to be profitable . There is a story told of a miser who , out of economy , resolved to save the exnense of horse keep ; unfortunately , however .
whenever the horse learned to exist on one grain of corn a day , it diod accidentally . You may , undoubtedly , destroy the unsavoury charactor of offensive trades ' , but then you must not bo surprised if tho trade should accidentally die out at the very poriod when your efforts aro crowned with success . Tho pica of tho chemical manufacturers is at any rate a logioal one . Their works are , or rather wore , carried on almost entirely in certain favoured locals tics ; Bow-common , Bennondsey-fields , Batterseamarshos , Maiden-lane , tho Isle of Dogs , and tho water-sido at Lambeth were tho haunts they moat
especially affected . AU these spots were selected , because , at the time when the works wore first established , there , they wore' unoocupiod regions at a convenient distance from London . By degrees tho workmen employed at the factories built houses in the neighbourhood , tho town spread , and the interval between the factories and London became
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PRE PARING FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION IN THE " LEADER . " AN ANALYSIS OF THE EOSiTION OF THE J 0 INT-S T 0 G K B AjT K S OF LONDON ON 30 th OF JUNE , AND 31 st DECEMBER , 1858 . ;
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There is nothing so revolutionary , became there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed-when all the world is by the very law of Its creation in . eternal progress . WDr . Arnold . . ¦ ' . ' ¦? . .
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SATURDAY , FEBRUARY 5 , 1859 .
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vn dfiS . February 5 , 1859 , 1 THE L E A B E B , m
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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . No notice can be taken of anonymous correspondence . Whatever is intended for insertion must foe authenticated liy the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of his good faith . It is impossible to acknowledge the mass of letters we receive Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press of matter ; and when omitted , it is frequently from reasons quite independent of the merits . of the commumca"We cannot undertake to return rejected communications .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 5, 1859, page 177, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2280/page/17/
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