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Leader (1850-1860), 10th May 1851, Edition Town of 1, Page 433, Untitled Article

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      tion , and regretting their inability to attend the meet , ing ; also the following letter from Mr . Thomas Carlyle : — ,. <„ v , "Chehea , May 7 , 1851 . „ . ' ^ ar Sir , —I unfortunately cannot attend your meet-2 * . thw evening , but will take the offered opportunity of testifying , IF it should be judged of any moment , that I « o altogether approve of your enterprise , consider it to be one of the most pressingly needful ih out day , and with my Whole heart wish it fipeedy and complete success . I think if ever there was a cause worth pleading before the public from platforms , yours falls under that description , in the present state of matters among us . To myaelf it sorrowfully seems , and has long seemed , one of the most singularand I will add disgracefulfacts under

      , , nite sun , that in a country so rich in all human means as England—and rich , too , in heroic ancestors , and noble Remembrances , and admonitions td wards whatever is highest—the mass of the population should remain at this day , not only ill-educated , according to the current insufficient notions and standard , but not educated at all ; left to live and to die , generation after generation , as if there had no knowledge ever come into the world , and the ' art of thinking , ' nay the very art of reading and spelling , had not yet been invented ! What is the meaning of Church , what is the meaning of State , Or of society at all , if this is to be the practice of it ? 'Without education , ' says Luther , ' men are as bears

      and wolves . ' It is not the clearest duty , presribed by nature herself , under silent , but real and awful penalties , on governing persons in every society , to see that the people , so far as possible , are taught ; that wherever a citizen is born , some chance be offered him of becoming c a roan , ' and not ' a bear or wolf ; ' and more care be had that the intellect of such citizen , which is the sacred lamp of heaven , and ( in the truest sense ) God ' s own ' revelation * to him , be not left smothered under dark ignorances , sensualities , and sordid obstructions , but made to shine for him , and guide his steps towards a good goal . This is for ever the duty of governors and pereonfl of authority in human societies . This duty once neglebted fend forgotten on theii" part , it is too fatally certain all other duties will gradually become impossible for them , and prove nugatory and imaginary

      as performed by them . In our present mode of management in England , where the so-called governors have neither honour nor will to attempt this long-neglected and imperatively needful enterprise of getting the people taught , it has become the duty of every good citizen to come forward and do what in him lies that it might be neglected no longer . This is the sanction of your meeting and agitation ; whatsoever , meetings and agitations may want proper sanction , you appear to me to have it . Hands to the work , then ; and rest not till by Such , methods as you have something effectual is got done in this most pressing of public causes . Shame upon us , and upon all Englishmen , if England cannot at last , in these fifties of the nineteenth century , so much as teach all her children the four-and-twenty letters . —In haste , I remain , yours very faithfully , T . Carlyle . " John S . Smith , Esq ., Sec , &c . &o . "

      The Chairman made a sensible and hopeful speech on the present state of the education question . Their object in calling the present meeting was to procure , if possible , the assistance of a number of gentlemen whom they proposed td enrol as a provisional committee . Two or three years ago the men of the City would have shrunk from such an appellation as a highly dangerous one , but in the present case it was quite harmless . Their object -was to enlist 200 or 300 gentlemen whose names they could put before the public as a sanction of their proceedings . They

      had also an executive committee , and if any gentleman present wished to attend and offer them any assistance they Would be very grateful for it . With regard to their prospects , he had not the shndow of a doubt as to their ultimate triumph . He had been told by some persons that the Church and the Dissenters were opposed to them , aiid that the difficulties to be overcome were immense . His own opinion , however , was , that the friends of the cause did not know their strength ; ond that if they would only exert themselves a very sh 6 rt time Would see their efforts crowned With success .

      The meeting was afterwards addressed by Mr . Slack , Mr . S . Crawford , M . P ., Mr . Henry , M . P ., Mr . Dillon , and lastly , by Mr . Cobden , M . P . The honourable member for Yorkshire , who was loudly cheered on rising , spoke at great length , in reply to the arguments of the voluntary educationists , and concluded by warning the people of England of the danger of leaving the people in their present state ot ignorance : — " Persona who were in the habit of disparaging foreign eountricg had looked with contempt nt the political miseries and disasters which had been taking place during the luot few years in Germany , France , and other - / mniricH of the continent . Hut he feared that ttity

      would find , if by any accident in this country the machine of government should be thrown oil" Hh hinges , and we should be left for a year without a government—if , in n word , we were situated as they had been , we should have far worao flcenea enacted here than anything which had been witnessed cither ih Germany and France . ( Loud eheetn . ) They might not have got exactly our constitutional forms but they had a counterpoise in the much greater subdivision of property , and in the bettor education of the people , which he wan inclined to think had enabled those countries to pa » s through a seanon of diffi culty and danger , and to ooinc out of a state of unarohy and confusion better than wo should have done hud w < i been uiiuilarly circumstanced . ( Cheers ) We were ia foot , In a v » ry aUrinijig oouditiou . He WM not talking

      of the physical condition of the people . We had eaten more bread and meat , and given more employment , it was true , bat let them look at the moral aspect of the question . What had been the criminal statistics ? ( Cheers . ) Look at the horrid frequency of systematic poisonings . ( Hear . ) Why , good Heavens ! there had been two acts of parliament passed within the last two years , for preventing people from carrying oh a systematic plan of poisoning ; and they had seen members of families slaying each other by that insidious agency . ( Cheers . ) Then again , they had seen the most horrid atrocities in the shape of murder and violence . ( Hear , hear . ) He had often talked with Germans and Frenchmen on the subject , and , after making all allowance for national egotism , and diligently reading the

      foreign papers with a view to discover the fact , he did not think the same atrocities took place abroad . ( Cheers . ) At all events , let them not fall into the delusion that there was nothing to render the education question one of pressing importance . ( Loud cheers . ) There was a vast deal to do ; but he doubted not they would co-operate with the men of the north in a matter which so nearly concerned the vital interests of the country . ( Cheers . ) For his own part he should be happy to assist them as much as lay in his power , whether in his place in parliament or elsewhere . ( Cheers . ) They had put their shoulders together in many a struggle , but in none that was more for the welfare and prosperity of the country . " ( Loud ( cheers . ) After a few remarks from Mr . Williams , M . P ., and Mr . Travers , the meeting terminated .

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      CONTINENTAL NEWS . A wet , dreary , dismal dav , was Sunday the 4 th of May , the annivers iry of the proclamation of the Republic , in Paris . Great preparations had been made for a fete ; but the weather spoiled all . The rain came down in torrents , and the mass of sightseers presented the appearance of an enormous crowd of mushrooms wedged together ; the umbrellas formed the chief feature of the iete . Evidently , the authorities studiously avoided , in the decorations of the capital , any reference whatever to the Great Revolution , or the existing republic . The characters selected from the history of France were the poets , the feudal heroes , the great commanders under the monarchy , two mechanicians , two generals of the empire , and a colossal statue of France instead of a plaster of Paris effigy of the Republic . The most original feature in the decorations of the fete was a cascade , constructed on the Pont de la Concorde : a vast assemblage of artificial rocks piled about the centre arch , towards the Tuileries , and crowned by a group of marine deities in plaster . The water conveyed in gutta perch a pipes from the re-ervoirs of the fountains of the Great Place , tumbled from the top of the centre arch down the sham crags . All this , lit up with ingenious combinations of lumps , would have been , effective but for the rain . The Madelaine was hung with tapestiy , with statues of Faith and Hope at the angles of the facade . The Quay d'Orsay was planted with trees , and bounded on the river side by a balustrade ornamented with sculpture and flags , and filled with musicians .

      The fete was undisturbed . Few people gave utterance to any cry . The provocations ot the police failed in their aim . The Republicans were forewarned , and the insurrection longed for by the Prefect of the Police and the Minister of the Interior did nut take place . The same result attended the celebration at Lyons ; with this difference that the authorities seem to have made sure or' a disturbance there , seeing that on Monday rumours of an insurrection reached Paris , which were false . General Ca . stellane continues to prohibit pamphlets and " operate arrest * , " the latest feat in the prohibitory way being that of forbidding the sale within the iron limits of hia rule of a pamphlet entitled Future Bases of the Social Church .

      The mysterious bulletins signed " Central Committee of Resistance , " continue to occupy the police ; it is said that the facts elicited compromised the Bonapartists much more than the Socialists ; that there are two Committees , and that the leaders uro unknown to theMountain , and of no authority among the people . The whole affair looks rather too much like the police plots under Louis Philippe . No doubt there ure plots concocted in France . We should be surprised if there were not . While public meetings are prohibited , the press shackled , and spies employed ; plots there always will be .

      The *' sensation" of the week is not , however , the fetoof the 4 th of May , or the bulletins of the secret societies . The hero of the hour in Kinile de Girardin , who ho often creates a stir in Paris . He has signed the following extraordinary statement in the l . a 1 ' re . nse : — " The flat contradiction , " h « vu M . Oirnrdin , " given by M . de fVraigny to General Chiingarnier " ( on thomibjcct . of the con vernation between thewe two ncrfionaueHa . s

      , noticed in one or two of my lute Kitten *) , " and the unaccountable silence preHtrved by the ox-Coininanduut - in-Chief of the , Army of Occupation of I'uris , render important and opportune the- publication of two fuc . tn hitherto unknown . The iirHt of them ; facts took phuir in the month of Mnrch , 1848 . The hccih ; piiHHril in the Ministry of the Interior , and in the cubim-l . of M . . Ledru Itollin , then a number of the IVoViflionftlGovernment u « dMinister of the Interior . General

      Chanfrarnier entered , and proposed to M . Ledru Rollin that if 12 , 000 men were given him , with the liberty of making his own selections , he would land them in England , revolutionize the whole of Great Britain , and cause to be proclaimed there the same form of Government as in France—that is , the Republic . ' The second fact took place after the first . The scene passed in Algiers , on the 17 th of June , 1848 . General Changarnier was then Governor-General of Algeria . He placarded a proclamation to this effect : — ' The Governor-General has received the following telegraphic despatch — " The Commission of Executive Government , composed of MM . Arago , Gamier Pages , Marie , Lamartine , and Ledru Rollin has retired . It is replaced by another commission of three members—namely , MM . Armand Marrast , Bercrer , and Cavaignac . "—Algiers , June 18 ,

      1848 . ' " M . de Girardin asks , who could have sent this despatch if not General Cavaignac . who was then Minister at War ? And he concludes that a plot existed to bring about the insurrection of June , 1818 , for the ambitious aims of General Cavaignac , These charges are awkward for both of the Generals . Cavaignac will have to clear himself anew from a blasting imputation if allowed to go uncontradicted ; and Changarnier , the Preux of the Legitimists , must account for his alleged offer to the chief of the Mountain , the man of the omnipotent commissioners , to set up a republic in England . By the bye , the latter is a grotesque idea . The hottest republican would have met the 12 , 000 brethren with open arms , it is true , but they would have been sharp one 3 !

      The military revolt in Portugal has been triumphant . Afier numerous and confident reports had been circulated everywhere of the utter failure of Marshal Saldariha , he suddenly turns up as in effect the dictator of Portugal ! It is still said that he was driven to the last extremity , out-generalled by the King , deserted by his troops , and in full retreat alone to the Spanish frontier . It is strange that so utterly reduced he should rise in a moment to be the chief of a successful revolt , if he had been really in so sad a condition .

      He had only to send to Oporto , and the troops pronounced in his favour . Count de Casal , the Governor there , he was obliged to retreat , and as Suldanha entered the city amidst songs of triumph , the Count de Thomar fled from Lisbon in disgrace . The Queen , unwilling to believe in defeat , instead of calling Saldanha to office , appointed Duke de Teiceira , he whom gout drove from Santarem . The denouement has yet to be seen ; for Saldanha only heads at present a military revolt , and no one really knows what political steps he will take , or what he will do for the liberty of Portugal .

      We hear that the British Government has strongly protested against Spanish interference in this civil contest . In Spain , politics run high . Democracy shows very strong in Ma / ' rid and Seville . The Progrer-istus will muster a respectable minority in the Cortes . The news from Constantinople is important . The English policy has again been defeated by the Russian Minister , Titoff . Sir Stratford Canning and General Aupick advised the Sultan to set the Hungarian refugees at liberty , as the last term ot" their detention lias elapsed on the anniversary of tht ir arrival at Kutaya . But the ambassadors of Russia and Austria entered a protest against this decision ,

      pleading a supposed secret understanding between Kossuth , the German revolutionists , and the Italian patriots . A visit of the Prince Frederick of Schle . swig-llolstein paid to Kossuth and the presence of . ' M . Ilevis , an Itn ian liberal , at Kutaya , are the facts to which the ambassadors allude , in order to give weight to their insinuations . The Sultan decided in favour of M . Titoff , and Kossuth is to be imprisoned for two more months . Knglish influence ia . we are told , entirely bullied by Russian intrigue at Constantinople . The Hungarians ) who turned Musselmen are to be employed in the Turkish army , and Guyon , who remained Christian , has been made a General of Division .

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      NUNNKR 1 KS IN KNULAND . The Catholic question is not destined to languish in obscurity . Many events contribute to keep alive the agitation . Besides tlio ominous postponement of the Kcclesiastieal Titles Bill , there is Mr . Lucy ' s bill on religious housefl , which will shortly come before the House of Commons ; and two cases before Mr . Justice Coleridge , in the Bail Court , respecting the alleged libel on the Claphnin Convent . On the 12 th and 20 th of Match last , the Mornbxj Advertiser published an article insinuating that an

      illegitimate child had been horn at the convent in Bedford-lane , Chtpham Common . The first , alleged libel was headed , " A New Order of Nuns , " and intimated that a " novice , " introduced by the medical man , had made ; her appearance , much to the Hurpiiao of the sisterhood . The tu-coiul alleged libel was a speech delivered at one of the " Papal AggrcsHion " meetingfl , by Mr . K . Turner , in which the former libellous Htutement was repeated , tdightly varied , but virtually the name , These sttiUimentH were denied in affidavits , put into Court by Mr . Serjeant Shco , from two clergymen , tho Key . Mr . JSunyaon and tho Key .

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      May 10 , 1851 . ] ©^^ & *<* & **? 433 ¦ , . > :. ; . i ... - - v . . .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 10, 1851, page 433, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1882/page/5/