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Leader (1850-1860), 8th May 1852, Edition Country of 2, Page 14, PATAGONIAN MISSIONARIES. Thebe are sever...

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      The Black Statistics. Political Arithmet...

      THE BLACK STATISTICS . Political arithmetic tells us any tale it pleases the poet of the Board of Trade "lisps in numbers , for the numbers come , " and cairmake you out a Process of the Nation in any direction . Crime has diminished during the half century : studious men can prove the fact by figures . Crime lias increased during the half century : men not less studious prove that also . The Morning Herald shows us , after Moreau , that murders in Ireland , from 1823 to 1837 had increased from 69 to 264 . From 1826 to 1845 , 5519 persons were committed to prison on the charge of murder ; 4900 escaped by acquittal or want of prosecution ; 619 were convicted ; 202 hanged . Yes , in Ireland , you say , criminal Ireland . But in England , as Henry Mayhew calculates , from data which he gives , the annual rate of criminal offenders in every ten thousand of the population has increased from 9 during the ten years ending 1821 , to 16 * 5 during the ten years ending 1851 . The Herald is arguing t © show that conciliation fostered crime in Ireland ; and ranged in the Herald fashion , the figures damn conciliation altogether : —

      1823 ... 69 — Lord Wellesley arrived in Dublin 1 S 24 ... 57 toassume the office of Lord Lieu-1825 ... 78 tenant , on the 30 th December , 1826 ... 96 1822 . The work of concilia-1827 ... 94 tion system then first began ^—1828 ... 84 crime advances part passu . 1829 .. 143 — Year of Catholic emancipation .

      1830 ... 1831 ... 106 " ) 1832 ... 136 > Years of reform agitation , 1833 " ... 231 j 1834 ... 180 — Decrease under the Coercion Bill . 1835 ... " ) Halcyon days of Lord Normanbv ' s . 1836 ... 231 > system fully organized and in 1837 ... 264 J complete operation . -Possibly a Staunton or a Somerville could make out the exact opposite by the help of figures ; but he would not deny that Ireland has undergone a horrible famine ; that wretchedness has

      exiled more than a quarter of a million yearly of her population ; that landlords are still " evicting , " and people still idling ; that Bibandism still haunts the land , and reddens it with blood ; or that the authors of " conciliation" have followed it up with anti-papal hostilities , embittering the whole country . JN " or would he deny that the Encumbered Estates Commissioners have sold Tip 100 landowners , and transferred property

      worth 4 , 000 , 0002 . sterling ! What a state for a country ! We believe that conciliation has failed , that coercion has " succeeded ; " but why ? Because Ireland is held , and governed , as a conquered country ; with the ideas , the manners , the laws , of the conquering country . A conquered country ia best kept down by force , inexorable force . If Ireland is to be soothed , she must be freod—ieft to govern herself , with Irish ideas , Irish sympathies , Irish machinery . Till such time as she bo depopulated , or released , will her black

      statistics go on . Henry Mayhew was arguing to show that Free-trade has not diminished crime ; and , whatovor feats a E wart or a Cobden might perform with statistical Marionettes , ho is right . We see many proofs , without need for figures . Wo seo how adultoration is eating into the very body of trade . We know that tradesmen , ruinously competing with each othor , are stealing their profits from the parcel under the customer's arm . Tho marvellous spread of bankruptcy is open to every noAVspaper reader . Commercial men dare not micas at tho aggregate yearly amount .

      Tradesmen fool that their position is uncortara What is to happen next P is tho froquent question . Yot shops multiply , shop windows become hotter furnished ; luxury doviscs now nicotios lor every house . Wo can all notice the constant appearance of mysterious notices in tho Timesdaily multiplying , often many in a day—addroBHod to fugitives and hidors--mostly oithor to persons run away from creditors and employers , or ladies evading some domestic responsibilities and bonds , Occasionally domestic bliss explodes , as in tho case whoro tho " injured wifo' soizos her husband , and drags him into court . Enough od

      transpires to indicate the volcano bemeatu . xu--trado assuredly has not organiaod society ; nor lias it established tho millennium ; nor , as J . < rcotraders promised , has it made every working man sought by two KMwteW . Aflk the $ viUm

      engineers how that is . Neither has it established peace all over the world . Lord Nprbury ' s murderer was never discovered , although , says the astonished statistician , three thousand pounds were offered for his detection . It proves the fidelity of the Irishman to crime—and to Ireland . It proves that there are other motives besides cash , even for the very poor . When they were told in Ireland that Meagher had escaped , they disbelieved it , because he would

      have broken Ms parole . The statistics are black ; but probably if Irishmen and Englishmen , if people's men of every country , understood each other better , they would improve the statistics . Nay , it is the same with society in its intimate relation . Half of crime is caused by the attempt to conceal from each other temptations , importunate want 3 , difficulties common to most of us ; and if we would but state them frankly , or hear them kindly , we might save ourselves much waste of crime .

      Patagonian Missionaries. Thebe Are Sever...

      PATAGONIAN MISSIONARIES . Thebe are several parts of the surface of the earth of which even yet , with all our spirit of adventure , we know next to nothing ; and among these is Patagonia . - The region so called , together with its continuation , the large island of Tierra del Fuego , forms the southern extremity of South America . A vast number of small islands line the western shore of Patagonia , and the western N and southern shores of Tierra del Fuego ; stormy seas roar along the channels formed by these islands ; and ships , in rounding the extremity of the continent on their way to Chili and Peru , have such windy work of it that they make as little acquaintance with the land as possible . In fact , so far as present convenience for all but the Patagonians themselves is concerned , the annihilation of Patagonia and Tierra del Euego too , and the truncation of South America about the 40 th parallel of southern latitude , might seem a geographical improvement . There the countries are , however ; and , doubtless , something or other is yet to be made of them . Patagonia is nearly a thousand miles long , with an average breadth of about three hundred and

      fifty miles ; and Tierra del Fuego is as large as Scotland . Here , as elsewhere on the earth , there are mountains , p lains , vegetation , desert , fowls , fish , and wild animals . Situated so far to the south , and blown on by the sea-winds , the country is , on the whole , cold and damp , as com - pared with the better known South American lands . Yet the climate must permit touches of natural beauty peculiar to the warmer latitudes ; for humming-birds have been seen in Tierra del Fuego itself , fluttering , during a snow-shower , over the red bells of native fuschias .

      Neither as colonists , nor as tourists , have Europeans of any nation yet set foot in Patagonia , The inhabitants who , for both the mainland and Tierra del Fuego , are estimated at half a million , are relics of the native Indian races that possessod these regions when America was first colonized from the old world . At least two varieties of these natives have been recognised—the Patagonians proper , tall , stalwart follows of " a rich reddish brown colour , between , that of rusty iron and clean copper , " who load a nomadic life in tho

      interior , and' on tho oast of Patagonia , wear skins and eat game—and the Fucgans , a shorter breed of men , with stout bodies , crooked logs , and complexions like old mahogany , or between " dark copper and . bronze , " and who inhabit Tierra dol Fuego , and tho western coasts and islands of tho mainland , whero they go about almost nakod , and catch fish and seals . Neither race is vpry promising intellectually , both having tho low , projecting forohoad , and tho small restless villanous eyes peculiar to the inyetorato savage ;

      but , if thoro ia a difference , tho Patagonians arc probably tho superior . Tho distinction between Patagonians and Fucgans , however , is , for ordinary purposes , superfluous ; and both may vory well rank among tho outcasts of human history under the singlo name of Patagonian a . High browed or low browed , " stalwart or dwarfish , copper-coloured or mahogany-coloured , those PatagonianB , according to tho doctrines of tho Chriatian Churchoa , arc man—having souls to bo saved or lost : dostinod , like all othor men

      to an immortality of existence , oithor happy or misorablo , boyond this life—hoyond Patagonia , as boyond Europo , Nay more , as tho Christian Churches teaph f thpro is only ono . way in which ^ heiBO yatagoaiana cw be aa , ve 4 " —can be made

      spiritually better beings here , and inheritors of the blesseH state hereafter ; and that is the wav appointed for the salvation of all men—^ -alike in all countries and in all ages— -the knowledge namely , of Jesus Christ , crucified eighteen hundred years ago in Jerusalem ^ To bring this gospel , therefore , to those Patagonians--4 o present , somehow or other , to their yiilanous httle eyes the symbol of that ancient and stupendous ; fact transacted in a part of the world they never dreamt of , and never could conceive ; or to communicate , somehow or other , to their seantv

      brains , through their ears , sounds that wuld convey a tantamount meaning;—this , accordinoto all Christian teaching , in any genuine accepted sense of the word Christian , is the one duty , par excellence , owing by all the rest" of the world to that wretched region of it . Strange , strange thought—to the Jews verily a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness ! Yet to this thought ' in all its strangeness , Christianity is bound : this '

      and no other is the thought of Christianity ; this very strangeness , this ^ very " foolishness to the Greek" is its exultation ; and that soul which , front any sense of shame , would abate one jot of the absoluteness of the ^ seeming folly , is , by a sublime spurning clause in the articles of Christianity itself * not the soul of a Christian . True , Christian citizens , and Christian newspapers , are now accustomed to set themselves against such views of matters ; but this is because citizens and

      newspapers retain the name of Christian long after , so far as they are concerned , the tliinghm been banished to the winds . Whoever asserts a Patagonian or any other mission to be " foolish " is a « ' Greek , " and no Ghristian—and this , though he should read his prayer-book daily , or wear a bishop's mitre . Well , but there are some among us , it seems , who do believe in missions to the heathen . The

      belief may be a mere mental fashion inherited along with the Puritan class of notions , and the people who hold it may be , in essential respects , no better than their neighbours ; still the belief is held , and people meet to talk about it , and are willing to put their hands into their pockets for it . Now to persons of this class , a Patagonian mission had all the charms of anew idea . Them were Indian missions , African missions , South Sea missions—why should there not be a Patagonian mission ? The possibilities of such a

      mission were large enough to captivate the missionary imagination . Christianity inserted into South America , at Capo Horn , and thence to make its way northward among untold tribes of nomadic natives ! So , after various preliminaries unknown as yet to the public , the thing was arranged ; and under the auspices of a society , whose honorary secretary is a clergyman residing in Bristol , a the

      party of seven persons left England in year 1850 to found the mission . These seven persons vrere , —Captain Allen Gardiner , of tho Royal Navy , as head , or superintendent , ( a religious seaman , we suppose , who had , in some of his voyages , looked with a Christian oye on the Patagonian coast , and so became possessed with the idea which he was selected to carry out ); Mr . Williams , surcreon and catechist ; Mr .

      Mawment , catechist ; John Erwin , carponter ; and John Badoock , John Bryant , and John Pearcp , Cornish fishermen . All were pious men , wo arc to imagino , full of the Methodist spirit and tenets , not clergymen , either , it will bo obsorvod , but hardy laymen fit for manual labour , and propared for rough usage at sea or on shore , taptain Gardiner , wo learn , was a man of resourcea man after tho stamp of tho South Soa missionary Williams , who , while ho proachod tho gospoJ , could steer a ship , or show tho carpenters how w build one

      -. . , Thovosflol that took tho missionaries out Jaiidcd them at Picton Island , a small island oil U" > southern const of Tiorra dol Fuego , on tho GtH o Decembor , 3850 , and kept hovering about to sc » how they got on in thoir iirstdealings with tno natives . Tho Picton " poonlo , howevor , wtiP monaeing ; and tho missionaries wont on Doaw again till thoir two boats could be got ready , ; u length , on tho 18 th of "December , they W \ W ' «*» £ flnnlW n . nil omliarkod with ^<> * \

      ( clothes , provisions , firearms , gwpowdor ,, too s , Biblos , and a manuscript Patagonian vocal ) uwy or two , ) in those two boats , meaning to makoio tho count of Tiorra dol Fuogo . On tho 101 U tn ° ship sailod , and tho aovon men wcro Jotfc beam b about among the Patagonian waves . No news of them having reached Eng land kom

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 8, 1852, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08051852/page/14/