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    October 29, 1853] T HE LEADE R. 1043

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    THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. A costtempoe...

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    TURNPIKE JOBS AND COUNTY MAGISTRATES. So...

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    Progress Of Tick Strikes. Oisr A Questio...

    not more than 10 s . a week ; in narts of Somersetshire they are as low as 6 s ., with an allowance of the rough indigenous cider . It is very difficult to support life on such allowances ; much more easy to find food , comfort , political freedom , and the chance of prosperity * in Australia or America ; and if the employer will not , or cannot give better wages at home , it would unquestionably be better if the men , whether of Lancashire or Somersetshire , were to seek their fortune across the Atlantic or the Southern ocean . The mistake which workmen make is that of ^

    supposing that masters can pay wages according to their good will ; whereas , if masters were to let their outlay exceed their income they would soon go into the Gazette , and their mills would stop altogether . If the manufacturing interest is to be preserved , for the benefit of men as well as masters , it must be helped over the period of difficulty . JSTow , the men can understand problems of that sort quite as well as the masters . They are not so accustomed to the inquiry . But a very little explanation would enable the leading minds to see the whole principle at

    once-The men are more willing to make sacrifices than the masters ; what they want is , exact information as to the state of labour , and its commercial value in other parts of the country . If they had that , they would not make demands commercially preposterous . Their means do not enable them to secure the information from a Sufficiently comprehensive field . The masters , under the operation of that ignorance which Mr . Cobden deplores , have thought fit to withhold that information from the men , or , in certain cases , to give

    it only in an imperfect , garbled , and misleading form , hence these quarrels , in which property and trade are wasted beyond calculation . If the masters want to prevent such inflictions , they will do their best to supply themselves and their men with specific , detailed , and comprehensive information on the commercial subjects in agitation between them ; and thus they will secure a trustworthy standard for settling these disputes , instead of bungling out the arrangement by wager of battle .

    October 29, 1853] T He Leade R. 1043

    October 29 , 1853 ] T HE LEADE R . 1043

    The Crescent And The Cross. A Costtempoe...

    THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS . A costtempoeaey , not addicted to religious Eolemies , has forcibly exposed the cant of " miselief , " which writers in the Hussian interest have twanged against the Turks , by way of strengthening the pacific prostration of Manchester with the evangelical delirium of Exeter Hall in a crusade against the Crescent . We have , for obvious reasons , forborne to press the tempting comparisons suggested by the policy of the infidel , Abd-ul-Medjid , on the one hand , and the orthodox Christian , . Nicholas , on the other . We have , it is true , in the words of an eye-witness , described the orthodox Christianity of the Russian Church , as it iH practised throughout the dominions of the Czar . We have shown it to be

    such a confusion of bestial idolatry , debauchery , ignorance , as even statecraft and priestcraft , under the most favourable circumstances , have seldom fabricated . But wo have desisted from pressing the contrasts and analogies in which the religious . phase of the Russo-Turkish dispute abounds . They are edifying and suggestive ) enoug h to give sincere observers pause , It is not the fault of those whose orthodoxy may scorn open to question , that the- great organ of tho enli ghtened flolllshness of thin ago and country should , day by day , have represented tho existbuouki , day by day , have represented tho

    existonco of Turkey as opposed to true religion , and tho Christian protectorate as a justifiable pretension of an evangelizing Czar . It is not our fault that tho faith as it is in Nicholas tho God-fearing , and tho faith as it is in Allah , should be tested by their fruits . Tho Times , adopting its vocabulary to tho calibro of the Great British evangelical intolloct , nevor discusses tho liusso-Turkish question without stigmatizing tho poor Mussulman as misbelieving and infidel . Those epithets do not , it is true , betray any strikingly original conf-op' IO » , nor do they communieato any thing now : but thoy toll upon that weak sido of tho eminently Holf-rightoouH Groat British mind which cherishes

    cant , as if it woro a certificate of holiness : — " '" *' . ° * UH < i pl < M 50 > " Ha . Y tfl ° Economist of Saturday last , " it in not true , in tho hoiiho in which it is ofdiwarily allogod , that tho Huhhijuih arc mix fellow OhriHtiariH , and that fcho TuricH aro ' unhoIiovurH . ' Both , iic-?! t r < un tf (<> ° ' ° * *'"'" ' onxl ( '> «¦>¦« '« w « l ) oliovorH . ' Wo v « ry much quontiou whothcr , if tho matter wuro trul y understood , wo should not find that English

    Protestauts , and Scotch Protestants still more , have not more and closer sympathieVdf faith and . feeling with the Mahometan than with toe benighted votaries of the Greek Church . The Turks pray to God onlythe same God as ours— 'TheXxod . of Abraham , of Isaac , and of Jacob : ' the Russians pray exclusively to the Virgin Mary , and a host of saints , who are an abomination in our eyes . The foundation and the first points of the creed of all three Churches—the May hometan , the Oriental Christian , and our . own- —are identical . "We all believe in one God , and in Moses

    and Jesus—we as a Divine Saviour , they as his Prophets . There we stop : the Russian and the Turk both go further;—the latter add Mahomet—the former add St . Nicholas , St . Catherina , and an interminable calendar of canonized priests and worthies . The former have added a multitudes of corruptions—the latter have introduced but one . It is sad and unsatisfactory to be called upon thus to cast the balance between two false and guilty theologies ; but we will appeal to almost any earnest Protestant who has lived in Turkey , whether he did not feel more prompt and natural

    religious sympathy with the followers of Mahomet , whose simple faith is / Comprised in two formulas— -prayer to God , and charity to man ; who never fails , night and morning , at business or at table , when the Muezzin sounds the hour for bis devotions ; and who never passes a mendicant without bestowing alms upon him 'for the love of God , ' however poor he may be himself : —than with the so-called Christian of the Oriental Church , whose whole religion is a mass of fasts and superstitious ceremonies , who is enslaved by a priest almost as ignorant as himself , who knows little of his Saviour , and less , even , of his God .

    "In the next place , in the immediate afiair now under discussion , it is tie Turk who has acted like a sensible Christian , and the Russian who has acted like a rapacious infidel . And how can a Potentate claim our sympathy on the ground of a common creed , while trampling under foot every commandment of that creed , and acting in the most flagrant contravention of its spirit ? * By their fruits ye shall know- them . ' And we have the highest authority for embracing in the closest bonds of fraternity those of every nation and-of every faith who ' walk humbly' in the presence of God , and ' act justly' in the face of man , and for refusing

    to recognise as Christians all those , whatever may be their profession or their name , who are ' oppressors , extortioners , or unjust . ' ' In that day many shall say , Lord , Lord , have we not preached in thy name , and in thy name cast out devils , and in thy name done many wonder ful works ? And then will I profess unto them , / never Jcneio you ; depart from me ye that work iniquity . Nor is this the only case in which in the Ottoman dominions heathen crimes are perpetrated by the Christians , and Christian duties are reserved for

    the practice of the ' unbeliever . ' No one who has been at Jerusalem at Easter , or who has read the accounts of those who have , can fail to be aware of the scandalous scenes transacted there every year ;—how the Greek and the Catholic Christians fight round the very sepulchre of their professed Lord and their common Saviour , till blood flows in torrents on the sacred floor , and how the astonished and disgusted Ottomans have to provide a regular police for the occasion , to compose the feuds of tho ' true believers , ' and to separate tho infuriated ' Christian' combatants . "

    All this , no doubt , is very true to fact , very sound in doctrine , and altogether very well put by our semi-ministerial contemporary . But is it not a waste of common sense and sincerity upon those who identify Gospel truth with Gortschakoffupon those who sent a bishop to Jerusalem , who , after many years' labours numbers more nurserymaids than converts—upon those who in one broath condemn free thought and anathematize the Pope , as the champions of a bastard and barren Protestantism ; upon those who aro taught to sympathize with Sfcato Churches wherever

    established , especially wlion the Altar and tho Throne are one ; upon those who forget that more than one Christian empiro is kept alive by Jews ; and that in our own Indian empire we can offer no satisfactory substitute to Buddhism for the poor Hindoo whom our missionaries have preached out of their native faith ; no substitute , wo moan , which the Hindoo will in his soul accept ; while forty millions of our Indian subjects , and those not tho least bravo or tho least cultivated , aro misbelievers like tho Turks P

    In our century , and in the classic land of cant , tho cry of " infidel" is tho oh cap revenge of hypocritical conformity upon the few who remain faithful to their own consciences in the tooth of social ostracism and civil disabilities . It is the safe and easy refuse of enlightened selfishness . " Misbelief ' " is , alter all , m more- flenses than one , too much a question of latitude . Perhaps it is likely to remain so for some time longer in tho Christian knowledge sense , unless , indeed , the " Coining Htrugglo" ( prieo " M . ) should bo out short by fcho Millennium . U k one thing in Turkey , another

    ~ ^ . ^^^ HW ^^ V ^ W ^^ iW ^^ V ^^ H ^^ H ^ Vi ^^^ H ^^^^^ in Russia , another at Calcutta , another in Ceylon , another in Borne , another in London . But we need not be surprised that those who , with the conduct of the Turkish Government throughout these tedious complications . before their eyes , can ¦ speak of the dignified calmness and moderation of the Porte , in spite of vacillating allies and hostile outrages , as the indisposition to come to

    extremities with the invader , and of the patriotic uprising of a martial people in defence of their nationality , their faith , and their independence , as an outburst of fanatical barbarism—we need not , we say , be surprised that writers who are compelled to such perversities as these , should be little ashamed to pander to the ignorant clamour of evangelical platforms , with the vulgar claptrap of " the misbeHeving" Turk .

    Turnpike Jobs And County Magistrates. So...

    TURNPIKE JOBS AND COUNTY MAGISTRATES . Some weeks since our attention was invited to a flagrant local job about to be perpetrated , by an offspring of that prolific parent of jobbery and model of maladministration , the Turnpike Trust . Indeed ,-we had remarked in a Bristol paper some very trenchant and vigorous letters , written apthe ti

    p arently by one on spot , and praccally familiar witn the operations of which the special case denounced was but an occasional example . A contemporary has already glanced at tnis particular case , not without a necessary apology for the " utter staleness" of the whole subject ; and , to say the truth , it was nothing but the sense of this staleness that prevented our taking up an instance of so marked a character , and so full of illustration .

    In common with the entire turnpike trust g rstem of the country , the turnpike trust of ristol is not in a wholesome condition . It is , indeed , a paying concern , in the sense of paying "for superintendence only , a sum equal to onesixth of the outlay . " It has lately been attempted to erect a new gate upon the Ashton road : in other words , to levy a new toll precisely on that branch of the trust which did return a profit . The total cost of this road is stated to be 1306 / . —its revenue 1391 £ . ; leaving a balance in liand of 85 £ . Why , then , levy a new tax ? Obviously for no other reason than to squeeze out of this

    Ashton road some more profits to prop up the illconducted credit of the general trust . Other circumstances , indeed , with which we are rnado acquainted , suggest other reasons . Within two miles of the proposed new toll-gate , there are collieries , the transit from which to the adjacent districts at present has no turnpike to pass . But had the contemplated job succeeded , these coals

    would have had to pay , and the rival collieries at Bedminster , whose coals have to pass the existing gate , would have rejoiced in an impost , which , would arrest the natural flow from the rival pits , to the exclusive advantage of their own . Tho promoters of the intended turnpike are roported to have comprised in their councils several worthies more or less indirectly associated with the Bedminster collieries . It is not coalowners

    only , however , who would have been mule tod at tho gate . The stoppage would have beiNi a nuisance to the rich of tho neighbourhood ; to tho poor it would have been an intolerable enaction . But there are other circumstances attending this happily defeated project of oHtablifiliing an additional tollgate within eight and ji Juilf miles of the < payinq tollgate at Bedmins ! . ei \ worthy of notice . " We do not desire to press tho case as if it were exceptional . On the contrary wo have too much reason to know thai it

    is but one flagrant exposure of a radically vicious and disorderly system . No doubt on many other roads a gang of surveyors and sub-surveyors divide the spoils of which tho public is defrauded ; no doubt on other roads the lame , the halt , and tho blina aro employed at the public ? expense to find rent for their employers "; just as in other counties , no doubt , thoro aro magistrates who , likesea-lawyers , know just enough of kw to be troubl esomo to their neighbours , and to bring the law

    itself into eontenmt . But in this particular cuho of tho Bristol Turnpike Trust , there is tho amusing and edifying point of tho troasuror summoning a meeting of trustees without authority , and thereby exposing himself to a severe penalty , and to the disability of ever anting again in tho Trust . And this treasurer , as often happens we daro say , is described as « , gentleman of active powers of annoyance uiul restless local ambition , wljo " <; imiihIii ( , oh" tho functions of a branch bankor with tho uovoso ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 29, 1853, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29101853/page/11/