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    ifffiBRTJAR^ 2%1857 . ¦]¦ f'BE IjE A - J...

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    THE WORKING CLASSES AND WORKHOUSE TEfcTS...

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    TAILORS' BILLS. Scarcely a week passes w...

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    Political Soundings. We Have Remarked Wi...

    itefortn party , is the vast-unorganized mass in reserve "; the fact that numerous men , of special authority and intelligence , are prepared to coine forward when an opportunity arises ; the immense moral gain that las accrued to the liberal cause through the destruction of old fallacies and appreiensions . For some years after 1851 the poison of Imperialism seemed to corrupt our JEnglish blood ; but that epidemic lias worn itself out . We hare ceased to ad mire ' the con

    centrated energies of despotism . It is time , also , that we should cease to devote so exclusive an attention to foreign aifairs , even to Italy and France . Their day wiLl como . ' "We cannot accelerate it . Our "best boon to them ^ vill be the encouragement of successful example . In several of our towns , especially in the midland counties , Committees of Foreign Affairs have sat for some months , collecting a considerable amount of mystifications and not a few chimeras . " Why

    not establish Committees on Home Affairs ? Our foreign policy , as the result of home policy , is secondary and subservient to it . Take care of legislation , and legislation will take care of diplomacy . " We shall be glad to see committees formed , in the great towns , affiliated to a central body or acting independently , to watch the conduct of Parliamentary aud Administrative transactions in London , for , while Parliament is uncontrolled , tne Secretaries of State are uncontrollable .

    Surely , in Sheffield , Birmingham , Bradford , and other towns which evince so much interest in Chinese and Persian questions , there are popular men sufficiently zealous to institute associations of this character—to all of "which we offer a free registry of their proceedings . Of what are the electors of Carlisle thinking , after waiting three years for Sir James Grit ah aim : to fulfil his pledge ? A Carlisle Committee to remind that riglit honourable gentleman of his " radical" boasts , might be a useful estate of the realm . We are convinced that there is a vast reserve of

    political vitality in the nation ; but it lies far below the surface ; at one point it is obscured by an Income-tax agitation , at another hy Chinese , Italian , Moldo-Wallnchian , Persian , or Parisian sympathies—all meritorious , whether we share in them or not ; but , whatever the national opinion , on . subjects of foreign policy , the national opinion is not adequately represented by the House of Commons . "We do not say , and have never said , that our Liberal leaders should desert their special objects —Sir William Clay his Church-rate Bill , Mr . Mr all his Church Establish meut

    motions , Mr . Milken Gtiuson his Paper-duty Repeal , Mr . Williams his retrenchment—to take up the cold question of Parliamentary Representation ; but why not be faithful to these objects , and not unfaithful to the common object of all Beformers ? A few nondescripts there are who morbidly denounce the idea of purifying our electoral system , and grope among mcdireval precedents for the

    credentials of prerogative , and the powers of the Privy Council . . But they are exceptions , and we expect to seo them return to the symbols of their party . There is no reason for thinking that the prevalent indiil ' eronce of the nation is everlasting ; our war accounts are not yeb settled in the Treasury , or in the Foreign Oftieo . When these matters have been arranged , we look for a political movement .

    Ifffibrtjar^ 2%1857 . ¦]¦ F'Be Ije A - J...

    ifffiBRTJAR ^ 2 % 1857 . ¦]¦ f'BE IjE A - JETBEB . 1 ^ 3

    The Working Classes And Workhouse Tefcts...

    THE WORKING CLASSES AND WORKHOUSE TEfcTS . "Wion the existing Poor Law was framed , its authors congratulated them Helves upon the supposition that , hy inventing : i workhouse tent , they had discovered a security for Hie independent labourer ugHin ^ t the tlie ' liizy and

    worthless pauper . The test , like most tests , breaks down on trial . It is , simply , no test at all . The theory is that when a man , not disabled by age , accident , or sickness , presents himself at the Union for relief , he should be required to show that he is not unwilling to work for his bread . Political economy having decided—so they say—that workhouse industry should not " be brought into competition with working-class industry , oakum-picking and stone-breaking are the experiments

    resorted to—and they are reproaches to our humanity . They are worse tlian inhuman , however , —they are illogical . The test of a watchfinisher is , whether he would finish watches if employed , not whether he "would pick oakum . You have no right to tell a Dookhinder , whose earnings depend on his faculty for delicate manipulation , that he is an indolent vagabond , deserving to starve , unless he can break s * tones . One day of stone-breaking may incapacitate him for a month from bookbinding . You cannot expect a printer ' . out '' of

    employ to do work that requires the strength of a navigator , and , also , tlie habit of bending the body . A . poor man , last week , was laid on a , sick-bed by a few hours of this manual torture , to which not even criminals are subjected . In prisons , there is a division of labour . The able-bodied , who have been accustomed to vigorous occupations , are set to heavy tasks ; others are directed to mend chairs , or weave mats , or perform other duties consistent with their physical condition and their previous circumstances . Precisely similar should be the treatment allotted to the

    temporary inmates of a workhouse . The test must be reformed—on the ground , firstly , that it is absurd , and next , that it is cruel . Supposing an unfortunate clerk reduced to pauperism ; to put a stone-breaking ' -hammer into his hand is to render penal the consequences of poverty , to place him on a level with the Dartmoor convicts . And ib is not

    less an outrage upon human nature to subject men who have passed their lives \ n tasks of delicate manipulation to the painful aud brutal labour of the stone-yard , which-must incapacitate them from pursuing their ordinary avocations . It is not to be expected tluit our unions are to be converted into industrial bazaars ; but quite as little ia it to be endured than they should be degraded into penitentiaries .

    Tailors' Bills. Scarcely A Week Passes W...

    TAILORS' BILLS . Scarcely a week passes without some evidence that the law for the recovery of debt requires a very strict construction indeed , unless it is to be made a lav for helping persons to obtain money- on false pretences . JSTot long since we had the case of a Mr . CuLVKitwJOLL proceeding against a Mr . Sidishottom for the recovery of money clue on accepted bills ; the bills having been used by Mr . ( SiDicuoTTOM to pay for losses which ho incurred at the Berkeley Hotel , in Alboniarlcstreet . The cash was furnished by Mr . Cur ,-vjeuwell . Mr . Culvicihvklt , had been in

    business for thirty years as a tailor , in Great Marylebonc-strect , Portland-place ; he was successful ; lie retired in 1848 , and subsequently he discounted bills . "Indeed , before he ceased to be a tailor he was in the habit of discounting about ( 50007 . a year . lu Iuh capacity of tailor he made clothes for Atkins , the keeper of the hotel in Albcinarle-strcet .

    At that hotel Mr . Si dx : motto m , a young Lancashire manulactmvr , lost something more than 25 , 000 / . at hazard . It waH hazard to the gentleman gainblor , but not ; ho to the other Hide . A . penitent ; accomplice of the establishment deponed that they played at ( lie house with loaded dice and ' despatches , ' I lie hitler beir . < r dice with double fives and

    sixes , so as always to turn up high numbers . Mr . CtJLVEitWELL—it disinterested party , of course—knew nothing' about all this ; but he obliged Mr . Sidebottom by discounting his bills . The trial , at which these facts came out , was heard at the Court of Queen ' Bench , on the 26 th of November last ; we noticed it at the time , and the subject is revived by a pamphlet from the pen of " A Barrister /' who calls for more stringent laws upon such transactions :-

    —" By an Act of Parliament passed in 1845 , ' Act to amend the law concerning games , -wagers , & c , 8 and 9 Viet . c . 109 , ' it Is enacted that ' every person who shall by any jfraud , or unlawful device , or ill practice , in . playing at or with caxds , dice , tables , or other games . . . win from any other person to himself , or any other or others , any sum of money or valuable thing by a Jlihe pretence , with intent to cheat and defrand siich person of the same , and being convicted thereof , shall be punished accordingly . '"

    Under tins enactment many an . Artful Dodger has been brought to book . 3 But from the case of Sidebottom , the Barrister infers that it is not atringent enough : there must he laws to put down the hells , to check betting , to \ asit individual delinquency with . its legal consequences , " ne quid ¦ detrimenti respublica accipiat" — -which means , lest the republic should be detrimentally swamped in accepted hills . But it needs neither ' hells ' nor racecourses to pluck voluntary pigeons like Mr . Sidjebottom . Even those who arc more defenceless are brought iu through , the aid of those laws designed to enforce the payment of . honest debts . A strong impression is

    gaining ground that there is seldom much difficulty in recovering honest debts . Practically , indeed , it is found that if * any honest man is in " difficulty , ' , and cannot pay his debts , his creditors seldom invoke the law . They come to an arrangement with him on the practical grounds of his difficulty and inability . It is mostly dishonest debts that are recovered , or not recovered , by the operation of the law ; so that practically the existing law operates principally to protect the trade in dishonest debts . -It is either used by dishonest persons to contract debts which they cannot pay , or by dishonest persons to enforce debts which they ought never to have booked .

    Let us take another case , somewhat different from that of Sijxebottom . There is no hell , no racecourse , at least ostensibly ; but there ia a tailor . Mr . "Woulfe sought to recover 107 Z . from Mr . PnorEirr , a student at Haileybury , for " clothes" supplied . The defence was " infancy , " and tho rejoinder was that the goods were " necessaries . " It came out in tho examination of tho plainti / r that he liad lent money to PjtoiMsitT , and charged it in tho bill as " clothes . " The fictitious sums amounted to

    thirteen guineas . It also came out that WoULrK had held out to PitorEttT tho hope of loans if he obtained customers for him . Tho Chief Baron more than once gavo vent to bis indignation . " The young man was not of age ; he was contracting debts which are unjustifiable , for clothes which were not wanted , "—and for " clothes" which did not exist . Tho Judge told the claimant that he had committed perjury , in swearing to an affidavit that Oho claimant was indebted to him for " goods sold . " A grosser and more abominable fraud , " exclaimed tho Chief Baron , " I do not know of . "

    " Are you nwnro , Bir ( ho aftked ) , that if you liad obtained this money from the father you -would have been liable , to bo t miiHportcd for fourteen yearn ? " WitncHB : Indeed ! am not , my Lord . " The Chief Huron : Or that you may evon now be proceeded ayniiiHt for a misdemeanour ia attempting to obtuiu the money ? I think it right , a « you confer the mutter , to put you on your g « ard . " WitncHB ( with great Holf-poHHesftion ) : I a « n much indebted to your LordHhip , und Hhall profit , I liopo , by your Lonlrthip ' H advice ; but we have grout diuiculty iu dealing with those young gentlemen ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 21, 1857, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21021857/page/15/