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jirtists -who complained of the colour of the water ; from . peop le of refined susceptibilities , who obiected to the presence of bathers not in full dress ; and from humanitarians , who were shocked at the possibility of the water being- deep enough to drown any one who jumped off the bridge . By these constant complaints , supported , in influential quarters , the Government have been at last induced to take the matter in hand . With a moderation , however , almost without example , they purpose to o-ive the ' Serpentine a thorough cleaning only , that will cost some £ 17 , 000 , at least .. Not content with this the fashionable faction of . Rotten llow are movino- heaven and earth to force the Government to undertake the enormous work of making a new bottom to the Serpentine , at an outlay of some ten or twenty times the amount proposed .
Now if it could be proved , that the re-bottommg of the Serpentine was necessary to the health of London , and more necessary than any other improvement in other parts of the metropolis , we should be the last to oppose the work , however great its outlay . The advocates of the scheme have however failed entirely to make out their case . After all , the proof of the pudding is in the eating . If half or any part of the statements as to the offensiveness and noxiousness of the Serpentine were correct , is it conceivable that
" all the rank and fashion in London , " to use the stereotyped term , would crowd round its banks every hot summer evening throughout the season ? Nothing forces . them to go there , except their own pleasure and convenience . The drive round Regent ' s Park , though unfashionable , is not exposed to the perils of the Serpentine . Yet we are not aware that there has been any increase in the scanty number of carriages which roll round the north-west passage from Regent ' s Park to St . John ' s Wood . Kensington Gardens are thronged
witlr crowds of people , well-dressed and well-to-do , who come there for . recreation . The number of bathers is undiminished , which is a pretty fair test of the water not being so very offensive , for we suppose if there is one thing a man does to please himself and not others , it is bathing . The evidence of one man , who says he smelt an offensive smell , is of no more value than that of one man who says he did not . Still , as a rule , we do not find , that people choose the bank of an ¦ open sewer for their favourite walk , or lie down by jn-eference in the neighbourhood of a cesspool . We may therefore be pretty sure , that while the ring at ; Hyde Park is thronged , and the gardens crowded , the Serpentine is no unbearable nuisance .
We are ready to admit that the state of the water is not what it should be ; but still , when we think of the dark places in London—of St . Giles's and Spitalfields and Rothcrhithe—artd of how much might be done to improve the health and happiness of then-inhabitants , with the money proposed to be thrown into the Semen tine , we own that we grudge the expense . If the wealthy martyrs of H y do Park like to remedy their own alleged grievances at their own expense , well and good . A very small subscription of a few pounds a piece amongst all who xise the ring , would give the Serpentine a new bottom 5 but why do jt out of the public money ? AVhat reason or justice is there in taking from those who have not , to give it to those who have V
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THE CHURCH IN THE EAST . Every one in early life has some object of ambition—somo bright vision , which even the wild fancy of youth scayjee hopes to realise . * Some men dream of wealth ,, and fancy themselves Rothschilds , rolling amidst bars of bullion . Somo , again , long for Parliamentary distinction , and hope one day , as Premier of England , to sway hy their voice an enraptured senate . Others revel in the thoughts of connubial bliss , and picture to
themselves an Itlual partuor of their exisfcen . ee , who shull unite tho beauty of Helen with the virtue of Lucretia . We , also , have had our dream , as unreal and as unattainable : its proportions may have been humbler , its features homelier , but its realisation is as mythical as that of any of tho proceding hallucinations . Our hopes , since early youth , have been set upon a pew—a family pewin . a parish church , Tho oiler of a sitting in a proprietary ohapol is to us nothing but an idlo mockery ; the pew , the whole pew , and nothing but tho pew , is tho first and last article of our creed . Even now that the bri g ht fabric of our dreams 1 ms vanished iuto mid-mi ' , wo cannot
refrain from dwelling fondly on the beauties of our conception . Seated on the soft-stuffed cushions of our ideal pew , with the dry hassocks crackling beneath pur feet , and the heavy prayer-book lying open before us , and the tones of the preacher floating drowsily about our ears , we should have felt so eminently respectable ; our position in this ¦ world ' would have been so satisfactory , our prospects in the next so decidedly promising . Then , indeed , we should have learned to look on all terrestrial and celestial matters from the proper parochial point of view ; then should we have understood the vital difference that exists between
sinners with pews and prayer-books and those godless sinners who never open a prayer-book and never go within a church . The Peri , in truth , did not long for Paradise more ardently than we did for a parish pew . Now , alas ! this last illusion of our youth is broken . Sentimentalists tell us that the pain of not winning the hand _ of the woman that you love is nothing to the misery of finding her unworthy of your affection . How this _ may be , we cannot tell ; we only know that our grief at never having been able to obtain a pew was joy compared to our feelings when we awoke to the fact that even this unattainable pew would not have afforded us the repose we longed for . Parish pews , like all other mortal things , are vanity : our own pew- —dreadful thought ! : —might have been situated in the parish of St . George's-in-the-East .
Picture to yourself , if your imagination is powerful enough , the feelings of any respectable parishioner of St . George's-in-the-East , on any recent Sunday . We suppose that even in those remote Eastern districts there must be parishsionerwho are men of common sense ; men who , in the words engraved on a monument erected to a late canon , " have an equal abhorrence for fanaticism , and scepticism ; " who pay their rates regularly ; make their children learn the catechism , and go to sleep every Sunday during the sermon .- To such men the Sabbath , instead of being a day of rest , must be a day of martyrdom . This unfortunate
parish halts between two opinions . The rector , appointed by a non-resident patron , is addicted to the mOst elevated Tractarianism ; the lecturer , appointed by the vestry , is an Evangelical of the . Evangelicals . What , then , is to become of our model and moderate church-goer ? If he attends the service he is a follower of anti-Christ ; if he goes to the lecture , he is a son of Belial ; if he goes to both , he is a Laodicean , neither hot nor cold ; if , as we should do , he goes to neither , he is a Gallio , who careth for none of these things . The very name of service must become odious to him . The sound of church bells must be an abomination in his ears . His Sunday mornings pass off
with comparative quiet ; it is in the afternoon that his trial comes . The exhibitions which have made St . George ' s-in-the-East notorious do not put forth their full vigour before noon . At three o ' clock the performances commence , with a Protestant lecture against Papist wolves in Anglican clothing . The church is thronged with an excited audience , whose polemical views are more fervent than profound . The occasion is improved . The " odium theologicum " is raised to its hig hest pitch —and then the lecturer departs , to make way for a rival performer . His flock , though left like sheep without a shepherd , possess no other resemblance to those peaceful animals . They are a
pleasant congregation , and they ore not dealt with pleasantly . At four o'clock , after a vain attempt to clear the church , a sort of travestied hybrid Anglo-Catholic service is commenced . There are clergymen in all kinds of colours , there arc candles and crosses , bowings , and genuflexions , and intonations , conducted by foolish young men and aftniired by foolish old women . The mob grows excited . Then follow shouts , and hootings , and hustling . Tho clergyman has to leave the church by a side door for safety ; tho altar itself is threatened , and the service has to be discontinued . Sunday after Sunday , on these sultry summer afternoons , have these scones been repeated , and unless the autumn rains shall chill the ardour of the combatants , they
seem little likely to end . Wo have no wish to lay tho blame more on ono party than tho other . It is a shame and disgi-aco to both alike , that they should not porccivo tho absoluto necessity > of stopping such occurrences , at any sacrifice of personal feeling . Ono thing is certain , that quiet and thoughtful men , . to whom ' church is a house of prayer , a place of poacolUl thoughts and inward cominunings , will turn away
from St . George's-in-the-East with nmch of sorrow and something of contempt . ,
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GERMANY . Aug . 31 , 1859 . —The agitation for union and parliament is fast subsiding under the imperturbable indifference of the great mass of the people . Beyond the columns of some journals there are no signs of interest in the movement whatever . The papers willingly publish the few and meagre reports of the utterances and intentions of this or that village conclave , but any thing like an agitation in the English sense of the term is altogether imperceptible . The
movement , such as it is , forms , however , the chief topic at this moment ; and as the object sought by it is uppermost in the hearts of the intelligent and patriotic few , and the attainment ultimately by no means impossible , it may be worth while to notice any evidences of activity in the movement . The patriots of Gotha have lately waited upon their Duke to lay before him the declaration of their views and wishes with reference to union and parliament , beseeching T , tm + r > imirr his nower and influence in furtherance
of the same . The declaration enunciated the desires contained in the other declarations , and concluded with the following tribute and request .-"We have the honour of being governed by a prince accustomed to wield the sword for the political honour and independence of the German nation . CAn allusion to the share which the Duke tookm the war against Denmark ) . We , and the other kindred tribes of Germany , can never forget , that
in the cause of SchleswigHolstein the Thuringian Prince , was the only one who had the boldness to raise his voice against delivering over German duchies to a non-German power . Nor can we or other Germans ever cease to remember another patriotic act . When , at the Congress of Princes held in Berlin , the last attempt , undermost unfavourable circumstances , was made to save the Duchies ( as an inseparable state ) , in spite of the threats of foreign powers , your Highness was
again the champion of that highmincieu ana pacroiic policy which embodied demands exactly similar to those now brought forward by the majority of the people of Germany . Since that period—a lapse ot years unmarked by deeds evincing self respect or national elevation—your Highness has ardently striven to give our scattered patriots courage , unity and patriotic ambition . I herefore , knowing well , and dearly appreciating the noble German sentiments which animate your Highness , we reverently approach you with the request : That it may please your Highness to take under consideration the present patriotic desires of fcthe German people , and countenance , support , and further the same in the conclave of the oJLi ™ nnw » m . » To this his Highness replied :
, " Gentlemen—By this address I perceive with sincere satisfaction that the evils of our present condition as a nation have been profoundly felt even 111 my own little native land . So , then , after many years of the deepest apathy , the wish for national greatness and power abroad , and ^ independence at home is once more awakened . This re-ag . tation must bo Welcomed by every patriot with joyiul hope . Be the ways what they may by which tho goal longed for is sought to bo attained , lot the constitution , primarily , take what form it may , this much is cer " ah"Siat before any beneficial result can be attained sacrifices must bo submitted to ) V pMnjes and States for tho sake of tho whole Gorman coai-* " *„' - ! ' tL- « £ nark am always ready gladly
to bring my g ft of sacrifice to tho altar of the count ? v cffXs I gave spontaneous proof on tho esta-¦ lisfesss- ^ SKsassss !*^ that no ? only dol rejoice heartily at this movement fo ^ tho Swtruo&on of a groat national party , but n . afr I shal over be ready by word and deed to aid inobtain ?™ forour beautiful country that power indoltlSaoSto whi . htl , oaQrman nation , above ^• lfa&S ^ JS ^ know , had once a ES « fe £ ? . i , Y « ,. ndoubtodlv the only prince that the Gor .
mBns would tolorato In case of a revolution . Tho journals , with an instlnctlvo foe ing that the 1 union of Parliament agitation will prove a faUure ? iro boginnlng to stir up the long dormant S upon tho question of Sohlcswig and Holstoln , which has " boon a rich mine of subject-matter for tho ao « n » ui nruss , and will undoubtedly bo oxplorod
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No . 493 . Sept . 3 , 1859 . ] THE IEADEE . 1011
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 3, 1859, page 1011, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2310/page/15/
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