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lebone poor-house . The old man stated that he had lived in Mtrylebone parish upwards of thirty-one years : and that , during Ihe greater portion of that period , he had been master of a flourishing business , and spent thousands of pounds in bringing up his family * His trade , however , went gradually to decay ; and , to crown his misfortunes , he had , in his old days , been seized with paralysis , which deprived him wholly of the means of obtaining a livelihood , and he was now in a state of great destitution . In this extremity he had applied to the parochial authorities to be admitted into
the workhouse , which had been refused . Mr . Hawlinson asked Mr . King , ( one of the parish officers in attendance , ) why the man had been refused admittance . Mr . Kiog ? replied , that it was in consequence of his having refused to say where his wife was ; as the Board had decided that they could not receive one without the other . The old man said that she ha ^ l run away from him , and that he did hot know where to find her . Mr . Rawlinsoa directed that he should be sworn to that fact . The old man accordingly took the book in his hand . 3 Jr . King . " Are you a Catholic ? " Old Man f
' I was bred in that persuasion , but have abjured it / Mr . Rawlinson . «« What are you ? " Old Man . " That is best known to my Maker : 1 am of no religion at all / 1 Mr . Rawlinson . " Then I shall not compel the officers to relieve a man of no religion . G-o about your business /* He accordingly quitted the office , sighing as he limped away / From long experience , we expect nothing from the London magistrates but subservience to the worst feelings and lowest prejudices of the yulgarest part of the community : and never was there a more signal instance in point than this of Mr . Rawlinson .
If the man had been a convicted felon—an outcast from society ; if his life had been spent between the hulks and the house of correction , —if he bad been convicted at the Old Bailey , of every crime short of such as could bring him to the gallows ; and , after suffering his sentence , had come before Mr . Rawlinson in a destitute state , claiming to be supported by his parish , Mr . Rawlinson would not have dared refuse an order for relief : he would have known that a magistrate is appointed to sit in judgment , not on men ' s moral characters , but on their legal rights ; that there is no statute
empowering him to dispense with the laws , when they award something to a person of bad character ; and he would have resented the very attempt to raise the question , as an irrelevancy , a cruelty towards the unfortunate , and an insult to the understanding of the magistrate . Such would have been his conduct if this poor man had been a convicted criminal ; but against a man of no religion , * all is fair . An unbeliever has no rights : the whole vicious part of the community may be let loose with impunity to injure him :
the law promises him its protection ; but the law can only act through those who administer it ; and , in hi $ favour , it shall not be administered . If Mr . Rawlinson thinks at all , ( it is an undeserved compliment to one who can thus act in such times as ours , to suppose him capable of thinking , ) he would most likely defend himself by saying that ' a man of no religion ' must be a man of no virtue ; for he will scarcely , we should think , plead guilty to what is probably the fact , that he had no motive but a wretched antipathy to a person who disbelieves something which At flatters himself he believes . Here , then , on the most favourable statement which can be made ,
a poor man has been treated , on a mere presumption of immorality , in a manner which would not have been tolerated if his Ruilt , instead of beini presumed , were proved , and were of the blaokest kind which a person could commit , and be tuffened to live . Let us go one step further , and notioe the profound ignorance of the world , ( the most fatal kind of ignoranoe to a person in Mr . Kawlinson ' s situation , ) whieh is manifested by those vehement presumptions so readily made by vulgar roindi . of all sorts of immorality , from the absence of religious belief . We will not be so uncharitable as to lurmise that such jp « o *
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522 Notes on th 4 Newspaper **
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 522, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/62/
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