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Untitled Article
nial Slavery ) which is in favour both with the Government and the people . Hence it stands high in all the lists , being fourth in the order of the total amount of signatures , fifth in that of the number of petitions , and twelfth in that of the average of signatures to each petition . This fact shows how 'the hands of Government would be strengthened' by the people ( as the phrase
goes ) in effecting Constitutional Reforms , were they but disposed to accomplish such reforms . In what we deem the best test of public principle and earnestness , the average of signatures , these petitions are a little below that of the Ballot and Anti-Septennial Act petitions , though far superior in number . A glance at the numbers for and against the Scotch Burghs Bill , will furnish the reader with another instance of the different workings of organization and interest .
Class IV . is , on the whole , honourable to the country . The average signatures to the petitions for the Jews , are swelled by the large Christian petition from the inhabitants of the metropolis . No deduction on the score of machinery , can make those for the Abolition of Slavery other than a magnificent display of public feeling . They are a glorious monument for humanity . Those for the Factories Regulation Bill , are also very honourable , and must be , substantially , successful . The subject is in some respects a
difficult one ; and it has been abominably entangled for party purposes ; but the overworking of children is an atrocity that , whoever be the culprits ,, and wherever the burden may fall , must be put down ; and will . The petitions for the mitigation of the Criminal Code , average well—539 to a petition . There philanthropy and intelligence go hand in hand . Would that it were more so throughout this whole class of petitions . It affords stronger demonstrations of benevolence than of wisdom . Glad should we be to see the zeal which it exhibits directed towards the grand and all comprehensive subject of national education and instruction . The abolition of slavery , even in a sense far more comprehensive than that which the expression bears in the present case , is itself only a branch of that still more glorious emancipation , the abolition of ignorance . And for this blessed purpose , how much might be done by legislation .
Like the celebrated potatoes thrown at the state carriage of George IV ., the next class ' speaks for itself . ' They are the 6 you must' of the impoverished people , in reply to the ' we cannot' of the feeble Ministry . Several of them rank high in the scale of all the tests which we have indicated . They are not to be trifled with . The expedient of a property tax , in lieu of all others , must evidently be reconsidered . Meanwhile , if this ' impatience of taxation' be ' ignorant / why is the protecting duty on ignorance so inconsistently and fatuitously upheld ? The people will not submit to the continuance of their present burdens . If retrenchment cannot relieve them , commutation must ; and
Untitled Article
Petition * to Parliament . 447
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1833, page 447, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/7/
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