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Leader (1850-1860), 26th April 1851, Edition Town of 1, Page 391, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      m his ministry Science is restored to be the handmaid of Religion . His wisdom has possessed many of our own distinguished divines ; witness the aer- * mons of the last Fast-day . His countryman and disci p , the mate of our own Sovereign , chooses a municipal feast i « preparation for the event of the summer , to preach diligence in human progress as high and pious faith reduced to practice ; and following in that same path , quoting the memorable words of Prince Albert , the Times , —the practical , worldly , sagacious Times , — desiderates for the great meeting of nations some religious recognition , which shall appeal to the broad and universal faith . Are these signs of a , sort to be neglected or slighted ?

      One Church may develope specific truths more perfectly than another , one may command wider sympathies amongst this or that race , according to blood and temperament ; but dogmatic antagonism and invidious discord are wearying the world with Churches . Those which would survive must seek their strength , not in the dissonances , but in the harmonies of religion , to which all human hearts vibrate in concord ; all must hold their tenure in obedience to the one faith , Catholic and Eternal , which depends not on geography or chronology , not on institutions or man-made laws . There is

      no lower allegiance ; and most chiefly does it become us to acknowledge that supreme and overruling faith when we have gathered amongst us our brethren from every clime , in every garb , professing every creed , but all , in one form or other , testifying to the one Truth , trusting in the one Faith , recognizing their common brotherhood as children of one Father , and doing a common homage to Him , in labouring together for the common good , for the better working out of His laws . We forget

      our own petty martyrdoms in presence of that sublime event : we cannot turn round in rancour upon the reviler ; but we will ask him to walk forth with us into the one Church , vast as the starry vault that domes the common ground beneath our feet , and in all faith to unite with us , with the Prince and the labourer , with each one and with the people of the world , in worshipping the Creator and Sustainer , by fulfilling His laws , each to the best of his understanding , in the service of our fellow-creatures , inhabitants of His creation .

      Let us conclude with the admirable expressions of Prince Albert , which cannot be too often repeated ; but rather , if a monument of this year ' s event might be erected , more durable than the Crystal Palace , thereon might these words be infixed in letters of solid gold : — " Nobody who has paid any attention to the particular features of our present era , will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition , which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end—to which all hiatory points—the realization of the unity of

      mankind . " [ After briefly referring to the inventions of science and art which promised to merge in this unity all nations , languages , schools of thought , and seatB of manufacture , the Prince went on]—" So man is approaching a more complete fulfilment of that great and sacred mission which he has to perform in this world . His reason being created in the image of God , hehas to discover the laws by which the Almighty governs His creation , and by making these laws his standard of action , to conquer nature to his use—himself a divine instrument .

      " Gentlemen , the Exhibition of 1851 is to give us a true test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this great task , and a new starting point from which all natioiiH will be able to direct their further exertions . I confidently hope that the first impression which the view of this vast collection will produce on the spectator will bo that of deep thankfulness to the Almighty for the blessings which lie has bestowed upon us already here below ; and the second , the deep conviction that they can only be realized in proportion to the help which we are prepared to render to each other ; therefore only by peace love , and ready assistance , not only between mdividuula , but between the nutions of the earth . "

      Untitled Article

      THE SOCIAL DISEASE . The marked increase in the frequency of crimes belonging to the most revolting claHH is a sign that ought net to bo disregarded . It is the overt symptom of disease which appears to be eating into the vitals of society . < > ur last number continued many instances of outragcH in this class—violence upon women , or femaU ' H too young to be ho called , infanticide , and Hiiicido uh «( 1 uh a refuge against fatal perplexities . A ninglo daily paper <> i lust week , the Morning Post of Friday , contained muw half dozen eason in hideous variety—a young girl had been the unconBoioua victim of suvvrul men in Hiicce 8 sion ; in two caaea , women were accused of infantioide ; a woman i « poisoned by her paramour ; an old man uubluuhingly admitted u oharffe advanced atfuin « t him by the parents of o

      very young girl ; and , in another case of the same kind , the criminal was the father of the victim . All these cases , with some others bearing upon similar causes , are before the public in one day , detected : how many pass undetected ? Nobody can answer the question ; but Lord Ashley , Sidney Godolphin Osborne , Robert Baker , * Henry Mayhew , and all who have visited the abodes of the poorest and most ignorant classes , know that the crimes undetected defy comparison in number with the instances of discovery .

      It seems clear that the vitiating agencies are more positive than the mere want of book-learning , " moral training , " " religious instruction , " useful as those correctives may be . Several cases remain in the memory of us all , in which the culprits were men who had been distinguished by some ostentation of religious activity ; and journals devoted to ecclesiastical matters are at this very time discussing the difficulties which prevent Bishops from calling the most flagrant even of " reverend' * offenders to account . At the same time we bear in mind that some of the most ignorant communities , in any time or country , have been among the least vitiated : the rural peasants of Tuscany are a striking example .

      It is a common notion that " idleness is the source of all vice ; ' * but idleness itself may be wholesome in comparison with overstrained employment—toil in squalid atmospheres , or exertion of a nature tending to nervous excitement . See what Lord Ashley and Blue Books innumerable tell us of the recreations to which the jaded toiler in factory or mine will resort—from infancy to mature age . Ask medical men what they know of the pathology of sedentary occupations , including the drudgery of the pen ; see also an appalling volume translated by Mr . Henry M'Dougall from the French of Lallemand , of which Mr . Churchill has just published a second edition .

      If we would really grapple with the disease which occasionally bursts out at the surface , in these eruptions of crime , or in sorrows like the Carshalton calamity , we must be content to study the disease in the plain , simple , pathological facts . We must not presume that " ignorance " is the source , when we find wholesale ignorance existing without any such effect . We might , perhaps , profitably investigate the moral and physical effects of protracted toil , of unnatural occupations and diets , of a system which creates huge towns and overcrowds them to an excess that forbids and prevents decency . We might , perhaps , inquire how far even an unnatural " strictness of morals , " as it is called—which means ,

      in far too many cases , the prevention of natural excitements and diversions for energy—contributes to the morbid state of things . Above all , we should study that general tendency which is daily withdrawing larger and larger numbers from wholesome bodily exertion in the open air j since wholesome bodily exertion to the extent of physical fatigue , but not attended by the exhaustion of squalid atmosphere , is the best of all discipline to chastise irregularities , moral or physical . We preach about crime , we talk about it in senate and journal , we write statistical works about it : perhaps it would be as well if we made a commencement in dealing with it practically .

      The commencement , indeed , has been made , by the efforts of Sadleir and Ashley , by Sanitary Associations and Commissions , by the improvements of which the Society for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes sets the example : but we might move a little beyond the mere beginning , if we would deign to a more thorough understanding of the mode in which these great remedial measures apply to the causes of the dinoa . su—~ -if we were to throw some faith and heart into the work .

      Untitled Article

      PROGltKSS OF INDUSTRIAL OJKJANIZ ATI ON . It is not in the Report of the Poor Law Corninis-t tuonors that you must look for information as to what has boon done , or may bo done , in rendering the Poor Law an instrument for effectually bettering the condition of the industrious c 1 ubh « h . The readers of our own pageu have been nuppliod with some information on that uubject ; but tlwy would have no conception of the facts from reading the annual Report of the ConunisHionorn ; unless they came to the puruHal with information previously obtained . In spite of the hopes which we

      Untitled Article

      * Mr . Robert Baker , the nub-Inspector of the Leeds Factory District , has just produced a most instructive little volume on the condition of the working cluuuea , to which we shall recur .

      have had , and are still disposed to foster , from the appointment of Mr . Matthew Talbot Barnes , it might be supposed that the last eighteen years had passed in vain for the Commissioners . About so long ago , the monster which was to be destroyed by the knights official of Somerset-house was excessive expenditure ; and that still seenaa to be the bugbear . Excessive expenditure , that is , on paupers , not on Commissioners ; for a d ecrease of the former kind is the first boast in the current Report . The exnenditure for 1850 r £ 5 , 395 , O 22 l was less than

      that for 1849 [ £ 5 , 792 , 963 ] by £ 397 , 944 . This is a decrease of nearly 7 [ 6 * 9 ] per cent ., and a qe- > crease per head on the population of 53 rd . in the year . Admirable administration ! it saved to U 9 nearly 6 d . a head during the year 1850 . In one respect , indeed , the saving was still greater : the sum expended in the maintenance of paupers was diminished from £ 3 , 874 , 321 in 1849 to £ 3 , 468 , 496 in 1850 ; a decrease of £ 405 , 825 , or nearly ten per cent . But there has been no diminution in the cost of the machinery of the

      Poor Law ; rather the reverse . The same Report shows us , by numerical returns of the paupers , that the process of saving has continued , and we know that during the early part of the paresent year it ha * gone still further . The expensive machinery main-r tained , however , does not prevent us from witness * ing such scenes as we have seen in Suffolk and Essex j it is scarcely applied to raise the Southern and Western districts from the desperately low level of poverty to which they are sunk ; it e « ja contrive nothing better for wholesale destitution , like that at Carlisle , than to set weavers at road .-

      making or stone-breaking . We look through the Report in vain to find any mention of the striking experiments like those at Sheffield and Cork : movements of that kind are going among the subordinate and local adminis * trators of the law ; but by shrinking from the subject the supreme administrators openly avow their incompetency to grasp questions so large and of such urgent importance . Yet , even in their own Report we find traces of the great movement . They contend for the necessity < f of affording to the children in union workhouses such an education

      as may best tend to raise them from the class of paupers to that of independent labourers and artizans "; and they aver that that importance " is becoming more and more felt by boards of guardians . " But they meet with difficulties in the formation of school districts , especially in the rural unions ; hence " workhouse schools must continue for some time to be the principal means of training pauper children "; and to render those schools as efficient as possible , by raising the standard of teachers and the means of training , the efforts of the Commissioners are directed : —

      " We hear willing testimony to the readiness with which the guardians generally carry out the recommendations of the inspectors connected with the committee of council , as well as of those attached to this board , and avail themselves of successful experiments made in particular unions . Our inspector , Mr . Doyle , reporting on the education of pauper children in his district , says : — ' In some unions the education of the pauper children has attained to great excellence . There are workhouses , like that of the Atchun Union , in which the children receive an education beyond all comparison hotter than is within the reach of the children of labourers

      in any part of the county . In the fjirls school of the Ludlow Union , the children now receive an education in . all respects superior to what the humbler ratepayers are able to purchase for their children . This high standard of workhouse education is fast ceasing to he exc . ep tionul . The example of one good workhouse school operates upon neighbouring unions , nnd I find a general deposition amongst guardians throughout the district to adopt improvements which are recommended by the experience of other uuioim . Thus the guardians of almont every union in this district , in which there ure upon an average a sufficient number of boys of an age capable of

      nidn . stri . il occupation , either have already provided , pr have determined to provide , the meiiiiH for their iihIuhtrial training . The unions of this district being aluumt exclusively agricultural , the means of industrial training for boys consist chiefly in the cultivation of a few acres of land by spade industry . In thorn- unions in which thin HsHtom can be huuI to be fairly in operation it haw g lrt-adv b .-en productive ; of much hem fit , and it will bo •( 'en , b y the detailed accounts furniuhed fioin aomn of them , that this mode of educating the children in habits of industry in attended with considerable profit to the guardians The examples of the Quutt school , and of the school of the Atohum Union , have given u very useful impulse to this method of industrial teaching . '

      ** Iu several parts of KugLuid the industrial training of children in workhouses , by employing them iu agricultural occupations , i « receiving Hpettiul attention ; and boards of guardians , i" inuny in « tunpoH within the luut eighteen mon'lj " , h » ve provided land mpressly for this object . Our inspector , M" " - Famuli , reports that nineteen unions in his district huvo provided laud , iu th « oultiv *> tion of whinh 614 boys nri > employed . In Hit Juhi » WrIuliaiu ' tt district , * lt > o , » oi « e « u « iH *»» tful cgnprjmvut * hwp a '

      Untitled Article

      Aprii , 26 , 1851 . ] art ) * & * && *** , 391

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 26, 1851, page 391, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1880/page/11/