Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 28th September 1850, Edition Town of 1, Page 634, Untitled Article

Page 634
Page 10
10 of 24

On this page

  • Departments (1)
    • POSTSCRIPT. Saturday, Sept. 28.
  • Text (8)
  • Transcript

    • 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.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      Untitled Article

      them to witness the results of his benevolent exertions , " Bon jour , citoyens , " said I , and " Bon jour , citoyen , " with a hearty shake of the hand , was the reply . " Think of us when you return to your country , " and tell your countrymen what can be done by association . Tell Louis Blanc we never forget him , " said one who had been a delegate at the I / uxembourg , " and we hopefsoon to see him again among us . Thank you for the interest you take in us , and we trust our enemies may soon be led by the accounts they read to have better feelings towards us . " J . E . S .

      Untitled Article

      CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM . In answer to the enquiries of a " Master Tailor , " and for the information of those of your readers interested in the subject , I beg to state a few facts relative to the ¦ working of the Tailors' Association in Castle-street , which was commenced in February by fourteen men , with a capital of £ 300 . It has now been in operation six months , and its success thus far is signal and indefeasible . During that time we have completed work to the amount of £ 2500 , thus " turning over " the capital borrowed eight times in half the year . The association now numbers twenty-three associates

      and six auxiliaries . There have been twelve auxiliaries during the last three months , but this is one of the slackest periods of the year for business . After liquidating the cost of all repairs of premises , fitting up of shops , show-room , and paying for all furniture , rates , taxes , rents , cost of management , and interest on capital , our net profit has been £ 220 . We divide this into thirds , one portion accrues to the associates divided equally ; one-third goes to repay capital , and the remainder falls into trade for extension of stock which we now value at £ 180 . After repaying the capital borrowed , we are pledged still to devote

      onethird of the profits , be they never so large , to assist our suffering brothers . Therefore working men in aiding us may the more speedily work out their own redemption . As an earnest of what we intend , we have started eight associations in six months ! It would surprise those who know not what we are doing to see a list of our customers . We work for all classes—Bishops , Catholic and Protestant—lords and draymen — marquises and masons — clubs and costermongers—earls and bricklayers—with general satisfaction . We do not set ourselves up as the " Saviour of the people not yet saved , " but we can point to our associations and say these are practical illustrations what working men can do when they have learned to trust themselves and each other . We have made

      association a veritable fact , and that is worth something in this competitive age . We have abolished the terms of " master " and " employed , " and with us the workman is no longer a hireling ! We can say to the world , when the statesman and the legislator are shrinking aghast at the Nemesian logic of this nineteenth century , when they know not how to answer the gnashing , and the lamentation , and the curses that ascend , ever ascend , from the nether pit of poverty ' s hell of torture , ** behold the way , " and we have set about solving the problem of labour in right earnest , ours is but an humble -working of the grand idea of the age , but its success will be compoundly accumulative with the widening of its basis of operation .

      The Daily News , while writing against us , has done us good service by apprizing their readers of our existence , by which we have obtained much custom . In conclusion I may say that any persons desirous of examining our balance-sheet , ledger , and wagesbook , may do so by calling at 34 , Castle-street Hast , Oxford- street . Gekald Massky , Secretary .

      Untitled Article

      LIFE ASSURANCE FOR THE WORKING CLASSES . The operations of the assurance system are receiving at the present time a more extensive and advantageous development than at any previous one . Not only are the benefits derivable from that system rendered greater by the reduction in premiums , ¦ which , both by experience and the improved health and increased longevity of the public , is proved to be compatible with profit to the assurers and security to the assured , but the amounts to be assured by way of payments sit death , and of deferred annuities or fixed sums to bo received at certain periods , have been , in some instances , lowered so as to put the system and its benefits within the immediate reach of the poorer and industrial classes .

      . Such is the nim and intention of the " Industrial nml Cicneral Lif ' o Assurance and Deposit Company . " Policies and deferred annuities for sums as low as £ 5 arc granted by it , and facilities to insure are given to those who are in tho receipt of small periodical incomes , by its being made oi > tional with them to pay their premiums either by tho year , the quarter , tho month , or the week . There is also , in the case of endowments for children , a singular advantage offered by this society . It is the anticipating of tho period fixed for the payment of the endowment by that of a sum not exceeding one half of tho premiums paid , if required by tho parent or gunrdiun for tho apprenticing of the child or its advancement in any other way . There are many other benefits which may be

      derived from this association , and of which we trust the thoughtful and economical among the working classes will avail themselves , and so obtain security from many of those evils -which in the present antagonistic order of things are incidental to their position .

      Untitled Article

      Dr . Epps's Physiological Lectures . —At the Literary and Scientific Institution , John-street , this gentleman is delivering a course of lectures on Human Physiology . The playful vein of personification which the doctor employs in his illustrations of the functions of the human frame seems very much to gratify his audience , who acquire and retain a very distinct impression of the lesson he seeks to communicate . Lecture-hall , Greenwich . — Mrs . Matthews , of London , has just delivered two lectures on the " Title of Woman to Political Power , " in this hall . The arguments were selected with considerable care , and presented with earnestness and force . The audience , select and attentive , listened with interest to this too-seldom advocated thesis .

      The Political and Social Tract Society . — -A tea-party held at the Literary and Scientific Institution , on Sept . 22 , commemorated the useful efforts of this Society . Mr . G . J . Holyoake , President of the Institution , took the chair by request . He observed , that the persons moving in the class to which the company belonged were in all probability never destined to rise above the proud level of history . To them it was neither given to manifest gigantic vices nor sublime virtues : their sole attainable usefulness lay in the continuity of little duties well fulfilled , and there was no mode of usefulness practicable to those who took no part in public life like that

      of employing the agency of Tracts . He read the concluding paragraph of the Reverend Charles Kingsley ' s letter in the Leader of Saturday last , pointing out the necessity of explaining to the public the serious misconceptions under which , so earnest a friend of the people was labouring , and vindicating the great principles of moral government advocated in that Institution . Mr . Turley and Mr . Hoppy addressed the meeting , and Mr . Austin Holyoake reported that the Tract Society had issued four tracts in considerable numbers and yet retained a small fund in hand . The meeting added to it by a voluntary collection sufficient to enable another tract to be issued .

      Redemption Society . —We urge on the friends and members of the society the propriety of paying up their contributions to the Communal Building Fund . If ^ one hundred pounds more are raised , the two hundreds will be so near complete as to render it a matter of certainty . Received in the week ending September 16 : —Leeds , £ 1 11 s . 3-id . ; Hyde , per Mr . Joel Bradley , 17 s . 2 d . For the week ending September 23 : —Leeds , £ 2 0 s . Id . ; Merfield , John Gray , 10 s . ; Rochdale , per Mr . J . Breerley , 7 s . 4 d . ; Hull , per Mr . Forster , 10 s . For Communal Building Fund , Leeds , 6 s . Preparations for the Harvest Home Festival are proceeding . It is the custom of the Temperance Society to address

      the people attending the feast , &c . Sunday last was Holbeck feast ( Holbeck is a part of Leeds ) , and the Redemption Society embraced the opportunity of addressing the assembled thousands . The people listened with great attention , and much good was done to the associative cause without expense of bills or rent of room . There is little doubt but that the associative idea has made much progress of late ; this is a necessary antecedent to associative action ; but we cannot conceal from ourselves that it is possible for the idea to spread greatly , and yet that firm and practical conviction which some denominate faith , and which leads to immediate action , shall be very limited . We should gain little if all the world should assent to our idea , and still remain inactive . When

      England numbers many thousand Communists ! Does such , a boast represent that extent of insincerity , or unfaithfulness ? Are the anticipated answers to these interrogatories too harsh . The existing amount of communal action is the most accurate reply . When the Harmony experiment terminated , a few people at Leeds thought that they detected the cause of its failure in certain fundamentals of its policy . They instantly set about organizing a new society , free from the defects which they considered had proved so fatal to the old one . Whether that step was a wise one or not , one thing is true , that the Society has steadily , though slowly , advanced in power and wealth from that day to this . If

      the Society had not been formed , the Welsh farm could not have been gained for Communism . The experiment of the Redemption Society is an existing fact : the press may not appear to know of it ; but should it fail to answer the ends of its founders , it is quite possible that the Times might find room for a leader on its failure . The men of the Redemption Society never lacked loyalty when the cause was in other hands . They still believe that all parties concerned acted from the purest motives . The project failed through want of experience , and we trust that we have gained by the failure . Other rocks there may be , but we shall not split upon that which wrecked the other vessel . —D . G .

      Staffordshire Potthiuus . —On Sunday and Monday , the 22 nd and 23 rd instant , Dr . Lees , F . S . A ., of Leeds , delivered three admirable lectures in the People ' s Hall , Shelton , to numerous and respectable audiences . At tho close of the third lecture a tastefully executed bust of the doctor was presented to that gentleman by his friends , as a slight token of their regard for his very able services in the cause of the industrious but oppressed operative classes of this empire . Pkogukss among Newspapers . — The provincial papers throughout are discussing the question , Competition versus Association . Several of the influential metropolitan pajiers are furnishing able articles on the same subject . The report of tho committee of " Savings of the Middling and Working Classes " has excited very general interest . Six months ago , nobody would have believed that the press of England would be overflowing with discussions on quasi communism .

      Postscript. Saturday, Sept. 28.

      POSTSCRIPT . Saturday , Sept . 28 .

      Untitled Article

      A meeting was held in the Great Rooms at TJxbridge , on Tuesday evening , to hear an exposition of the principles of the National Reform Association . Mr . H . J . Slack said the association was really what it professed to be ; it was truly national in its principles and objects : — " The first aim of the association was such an extension of the suffrage as would confer the right to be registered as an elector upon every man of full age , not subject to any legal disability , who had for twelve months occupied a tenement , or a portion of one , for which he had claimed to be rated to the relief of the poor . He knew that there

      were numbers who advocated manhood suffrage , maintaining that the sacred right of voting was inherent , not in the bricks and mortar , but in the man . { Cheers . ) What he would impress upon such persons was , that the proposed enfranchisement was one of very great extent . He did not stand there as the advocate of * finality ; ' he detested the word ; but he maintained that they might consistently be contented to pass through an intermediate space in order to attain the ultimate end . ( Hear , hear . ) With this view they should endeavour to unite as many reformers as possible . This country now contained between six and seven millions of adults , and

      of these only about 800 , 000 possessed the franchise . If the first principle of the association was carried into effect , there would be 3 , 000 , 000 electors . What was contemplated was , in fact , a lodger suffrage—that every one who occup ied a lodging , and went through a formal process of rating—for it need be nothing more than formal—should have a vote , and as the great bulk of the industrious classes in this country resided in their abodes as permanently as the wealthy classes , it would be seen that under what was proposed scarcely any adult need be without the franchise . "

      The other objects of the National Reform Association were—vote by ballot , and such a change in the electoral districts as would produce a fairer apportionment of representatives to the population . Mr . George Thompson delivered a long and able speech in which he exposed the evils of the present mischievous system . Unless they had a real representation of the tax-paying community , it would be better for them to place the power of laying on the taxes in the hands of two or three men than in 656 , The latter , though personally interested in the maintenance of high taxes , profess to represent the nation , and , consequently , the people are said to be taxed by themselves , and cannot complain in the manner they might and would , if a few men were individually and personally responsible for the laying on of these

      impositions . A resolution , declaratory of confidence in the association , was then carried unanimously ; and a vote of thanks to the chairman terminated the proceedings .

      Untitled Article

      A * ' farewell group meeting" of the emigrants connected with the Family Colonization Loan Society , who are to sail from Gravesend on the 30 th instant , was held in the Royal British Institution , City-road , yesterday evening . Mr . Wyndham Harding stated that fifty families and forty young girls are going out by a vessel , who have subscribed about £ 1400 towards the expenses of their transit . Mr . Lowe , a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales , spoke of much approbation of the principle of the association : —

      " The principle was not eleemosynary , but that of sending out the emigrants at their own expense , and for that he admired it , because it would work out and demonstrate the enormous power of cooperation , and show how it could be made to work out any good object that was required . Not a shilling was asked to be given to the society ; but what was wanted was a floating capital , which , misht be contributed by the upper classes , which , being returned , should afford the means of at once relieving the labour-market of this country , and of enabling the workins classes to find remunerated labour and happy homes in the colonies . The emigrants who were going out now wflre ™ t doirnr so onlv to better their condition , but also as

      the pioneers of a great principle , and upon depended the destinies of hundreds and thousands of men hereafter . If thev returned the money advanced to them it would be proved that the working classes were worthy of confidence ; the system would progress , and the money returned would be the means of sending out others , and continuing the working of the principle . The meeting was afterwards addressed by Mr , Yernon Smith , Lord Clifford , Mr . Sydney , and Mr . Mosmnn ; all of whom spoke in the highest terms ot the efforts of Mrs . Chisholm in promoting the objects of the association .

      Untitled Article

      Her Majesty and Prince Albert went out walking in the early part of Wednesday . Prince Albert afterwards went out shooting . The Earl of Aberdeen , who arrived at Balmoral on Wednesday , and Sir Edwin Landseer , who has been there for some days , dined with her Majesty on Wednesday . At the Privy Council , on Tuesday , it was resolved that the Parliament , which stands prorogued to Tuesday , the 15 th day of October next , be further prorogued to Thursday , the 14 th day of November next . A ball was given by her Majesty on Tuesday night to the tenantry on the estates of Balmoral , Abergeldie , and Birkhall .

      Untitled Article

      634 tRff $ SLiattir * [ Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 28, 1850, page 634, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1854/page/10/