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    ^ *«« M 4W rH 12. 1 859,1 THE LEADER. 33...

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    THE JUSTICES AND THE HIGHWAYS. One of th...

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    of volcanic agency; stilL af ter all, it...

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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 Reform Bill—Opinions Regarding It. T...

    political vicissitude and personal exclusion ^ from £ ower all eyes are turned on . him as ^ the natura l leader of tlie Reform party . He has but . torepioduce to-morrow , anaid general acceptance , «» eprojposals that were treated with inference , w Ly were last made by him , Whether ^ they be accepted by ministers in the present House of Conmions , ' or carried into effect by Lord John Russell himself in a new Parliament , he willhave equally won the prize on honour and of patriotism .

    ^ *«« M 4w Rh 12. 1 859,1 The Leader. 33...

    ^ *«« M rH 12 . 1 859 , 1 THE LEADER . 33 9

    The Justices And The Highways. One Of Th...

    THE JUSTICES AND THE HIGHWAYS . One of the distinctions between civil life and military life is , that in the latter the superior prescribes duties , and decides whether or not they be properly performed , Avhile in the former the duties are prescribed by one authority , or are settled by contract , and another judges whether they have been properl y performed or not . The latter principle is much the most favourable to justice and freedom ,- and in almost all cases , such as the public offices , in which the master and the judge are of ten the same person , the interference of some third party , and wanting legal authority , the Interference of the public is sotight . To ensure as

    tricts , in addition to the numerous other divisions , lay and secular , ancient and modern , into which it is already most inconveniently and discordantly cut up . The legislature has a terrible repugnance to electoral districts , as something new and strange , but new districts of its own devising , comphrcatin " all our affairs , and adding to our expenses , seem readily to meet its approbation . They are accompanied , too , by a confiscation of the property of parishes—great as is the horror professed by our Legislature whenever confiscation is mentioned . When all the new machinery is organised and trot into gear , the hig hway board shall , on the application of any trustees or commissioners of turnpike roads , undertake the repair and maintenance of the said roads , the said commissioners to pay

    the board such sums out of their revenue as may be agreed on . This we believe to be the main object for which all tins new machinery is to be provided . In many places the turnpike roads have fallen into decay since railways came into use , and these merely private speculations , very of ten undertaken as much for private as public purposes , ' are now to be maintained by the public . When the funds from tolls are insufficient , the public will have to pay the expense , and if any difference of inion arise between the high-¦ h

    op ^ 4 AJUk ^^^ k ^^ J ^ Jb ^^ ^^ *^ ^ ^^ | " ^ — . . . . ¦ way boards and the turnpike trusts , the justices at quarter-sessions are to decide betwixt them . Now , these justices are very often commissioners of turnpike roads , have very generally an interest in them , and will thus often be enabled by this bill , should it become law , to relieve themselves , by their magisterial authority * of obligations they have contracted as private individuals . Two justices—also , not the boardswill have the power of directing any highway to

    be discontinued , so that it jhftll . no < longer be kept up at the public expense , Thus this bill , as we read It , will enable the justices to determine in the end what roads shall be kept up , what roads shall be abandoned , while the boards which they are authorised to form have the power of making the people pay all the expenses . In . the last resort , too , the justices who have exercised all . these ppwers as administrators ; will have to decide all doubts and disputes as judges .

    This proposed law , then , violates , in a remarkable manner , the great principle of our social life , and introduces into a very large portion of it the principle of military discipline , applying it to pecuniary matters , and making one and the same persons administrators and judges of their administration . It transfers power from the peop le to . the justices , and leaves them without responsibility . By insiduous laws of this petty and wheedling description , the public liberties have been more frequently subverted than by open and bold attempts to

    establish despotism . The latter create alarm and are at once resisted ; the forme do not even excite suspicion ; and men are bound and habituated to their fetters before they become aware that they are enslaved . The bill is a Tory concoction , and bears on its back , the names of Mr . Walpole , late Secretary for the Home Department ; Mr . Hardy , the Under Secretary for that Department , and Sir William Jolliue , Secretary to the Treasury , and the whipper-in to the Conservatives .

    complete justice as man can arrive at , the administrator , then , must be oiie person , and the judge another . In much of our modern legislation , however—all that concerns the police ^ for examplethis principle is departed from ; and the administrator and the judge are— -except so far as the public , by its unauthorised and yet most necessary organs , interfere—one and the same person . Justice ' s justice has passed into a proverb , and when the administrative power * as well as the judicialfunctions ^ of justices is surreptitiously increased , the people require to be put on their guard . Accordingly , we have to warn them that a Highways' Bill is now before the House of Commons which places in the

    hands of justices assembled in quarter-sessions the power of forming the whole countay into dis ^ triets , for the management of the hi g hways , and of determining the number of way-wardens to ^ elected in each district . They are to fix the time for the first meeting ' of the way-wardens , and are to be delegated creators of the whole organisation . When the justices have formed the districts , the persons in the parishes entitled to vote for guardians of the poor are to elect the wardens under all the regulations niode by the Poor Law Board , which may prescribe the qualification of wardens , and is to have the same control over them as it lias

    over the guardians of the poor . The system for the relief of pauperism is now applied to the business of-the people ; and the severe administrative rules supposed to be proper for It are to be made the rules of " our general lives . The wardens , under the con - trol of the Poor Law Board , ai-e to constitute themselves into highway boards , each having a corporate seal , and all the property and powers now vested in existing surveyors of roads , and escercisable by them—a most indefinite expression—are to pass to the new highway boards . All the property and power , too , which the parishes may have in the roads , are in like manner to pass to the way-wardens ,

    the parishes receiving credit in the books of the boards for- the property appropriated . The wardens being duly constituted , the justices at two consecutive meetings of quarteivsessions may make tiny alterations they . think proper in highway districts , or may make new ones at their pleasure * The highway boards are to appoint chairmen and sub-chairmen , clerks , treasurers , and aui'veyors , and will ibvm in every disstriet nests of new officials , with good salaries , adding to the power and patronage of the Poor Law Board and the justices . All the highways now under the parish authorities will be under tlio . ^ e boards , which are to mnke nil the arrangements for keeping them . in order . They

    may contract with any local bodies lor taking on themselves , and keeping in ordor , any roads formed under any local ai'tf , including turnpike roads , All the exponnes of tlio now boards and of the roads are to bo paid by ratos , and the way-wavdonfl avo ^ to have the j , } owor oi" demanding from tho parishes whatever sums they may think , jiroper , rind the overscore of tho poor wi ( l bo compelled to pay those sums , under tho penalty of distraint . And _ to niuko quito tsuro of the monoy- ^ ono p'inoipal point—tho highway boards , tho members of wlrioli aro irremovable , aro authorised to appoint persons to levy the sums they require on any parish in defluilt of tho overseers . , Thus England is now to bo divided into highway dis »

    Of Volcanic Agency; Still Af Ter All, It...

    of volcanic agency ; stilL af ter all , it is very certain , that sooner or later an eruption will take place , and your hap-hazard observations may turn out to be of more value than you are disposed to fancy . It has been so with us ^ as , doubtless , with others , in our wanderings of late through this pleasant Jttaliaii latid . As the marvellous beauties of the surroundinjr scenes lost their first charm of

    novelty , bur thoughts have wandered m search of what symptoms we could trace of the changes that are like to come . Straws show which way the wind is blowing , and as straws we would offer such . stray bits and odds and ends of observations as we have made—giving : them only for what they are worth , as the roadside remarks of one passing amidst scenes which , ere long , may turn out to be memorable in the world ' s history .

    In crossing the Sardinian states , we looked out eagerly for the great changes which we had expected to have seen there . It was close on sixteen years since we had last seen the hills of " Nizzala Maritima . " Those were the good old days , when Charles Albert rei <* ned supreme . Even amongst Italian states , Sardinia was not then pre-ennnent ibr either freedom or enlightenment . Indeed , at that period , the future patriotic hero of Italy and ridden

    freedom used to be stigmatised as a priest- , persecuting-, and despotic prince . Since then , a free press , representative parliaments , civil and reli"ious freedom ,, have become Sardinian institutions . Yet we own with reluctance that we failed to discover such symptoms of material progress as we should have hoped for from this ° moral development . Nice itself has become a kind of Italian Brighton . The gold of Russians and English has covered the

    surrounding hills with villa residences , more or less dissightly . But in the native and commercial part of tlie town we could discover but little trace of progress . There were few new buildings , no new factories , and but little increase in the shipping , About the streets there were still crowds of priests ; the peasants were as dirty and unsavoury as of yore ; the cottage habitations as squalid , and the country roads as villainous . . The great signs of outward change were an increased number of disreputable refugees , or exiles , or patriots —call them what you like—wandering about the cafes , and a small swarm of local newspapers of iuos $ diminutive size and most extensive preten ; sions . They were all in French , and rejoiced m such titles as the Promised Land , the Future o

    Italy , and .-the Hopeofthe People . Such bombastic eloquence , such reckless assertion , and such , vehemence of party feeling seem almost unintelligible to us cold , stolid Englishmen . , * ancy a "rave calculation of the exact date ( we think it was about the middle of this month ) when the present English Ministry are to retire from office , and an enthusiastic populace are to bear into power a Liberal cabinet , ready to , unfurl the colours of Italian independence . To our minds the bitterness of personal feeling is , perhaps , more accountable . Happening to talk with an Italian gentleman of singularl y , amiable disppsition about the then current rumour of the death by poison of

    the King of Naples , we were surprised at first to hear him express regret at the occurrence . " No , he proceeded , " I grudge him' the ease of a sudden death . I cannot hear The thought that he should die without having first himself boon obliged to feel the pangs and horrors of coining death , or , as he worded It , " nssopirane la morte . " We have no wish in these or other remarks to decry the immense advantages that Sardinia lias gained by constitutional government . In the neighbourhood of Genoa and Turin you can see signs of that material progress which Bontirnentulistfl < loapi . se , Due which is , nevertheless , an essential symptom ut national health nml vigour . TIhm-o is no good , however , in ( Uaguiwing tho plum ( act , that me growth of oonatiTutLonulUn h \ Sardinia has boon somewhat of a mushroom one , and as yut tho huoub of independence ui . il soli-government hero had but little time to take mot . Tho Sardinian * have been made wholesale convert * to constitutional government in much the sumo uuuuiur hs tho . Jesuits converted tho ChincuKJ by promiscuous baptism ; and if anvthin « was to overthrow the present ruling powers ofthognllaiiMiltlo kingdom , wo suspect that theffreat bulk of tho rural and mountain population would relapse under tho old r / igimo without muoli regret or vivid appreciation of tho change Somo days ngo wo engaged a buntmnn to

    [ We are happy to present to cur readers the impressions of the present state of Italy , gathered by an esteemed contributor from personal observation . "] A STREET VIEW OF ITALY . —No . I . NICE VI 1 XA-FRANC A—GENOA . When you stnnd for tho first time on tho summit of Mount Vesuvius—when you have gazed your fill on that wondrous panorama of sea and slsy , of shore and ' island—as you crumple beneath your feet the volcanic lnva , under which tho hidden fire smoulders oternally—youv first thought is to watch and discover for yourself some trace or symptom of tho coming eruption . > So you pick up

    a pobblo here , and poko into a erovico there , ana note Home cloud of smok « iloathig skywards from a clef t in tho surrounding rocks , and try to traco some sulphureous odour in tho air you breathe . It may bo , indeed tho olmnoos aro , that your dilettante observations nro of little value . The hole may have boon dug by human hands , and tho pobblo dropped by some preceding traveller ; tho nmoko may aviso from the dinners tlmt your guides are cooking , and the neighbourhood of Neapolitans may aooount fbr unsavory smells without tho aid

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 12, 1859, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_12031859/page/19/